The Speaking Stories Project

The Speaking Stories Project is an educational project to benefit struggling readers, particularly in underserved communities. We partner with libraries and other community organizations to provide reading-writing workshops for middle and high school youth. These workshops increase reading confidence and skill, writing ability, and personal expression, in order to empower youth in their lives.

The heart of the Speaking Stories program is stories that speak to what’s important to the readers. We put these stories on the web with sound and pictures, so that struggling readers can read above their comprehension level and internalize reading strategies that good readers use intuitively. Often the stories we use have been written in a Speaking Stories workshop, because there’s nothing like knowing a story you wrote is helping younger readers in communities just like yours.

To learn more, contact us at info@speakingweb.net.

Welcome to Speaking Stories
AN ONLINE READING TOOL FOR STRUGGLING READERS


SPEAKING STORIES combines empowering stories with sound and picture comprehension supports.

  1. We begin with compelling stories that are authentic and relevant to the lives of diverse readers in underserved communities.
  2. We add interactive sound so readers can hear paragraphs, words, and word definitions spoken—and always at their own pace.
  3. We keep the story pages intuitive and simple so that struggling readers can strengthen their reading skills and confidence.

SPEAKING STORIES are a set of short stories on the web, with sound, pictures, and comprehension structures that enable struggling readers to read well beyond their current reading level.

Speaking Stories support struggling readers by increasing their comprehension skills and reading confidence, and by enabling them to internalize the reading strategies that good readers use intuitively. Motivation is key. We believe that authentic stories, written by members of their own communities, motivate struggling readers to read.

Speaking Stories are a new model for education. Speaking Stories empower readers by speaking to what matters in their lives.