WHYY Educational Outreach

WHYY Ready To Learn staffers Susan Poglinco (left) and Sandra Andino get a hug from Cookie Monster.

WHYY's Ready to Learn (RTL) program provides an invaluable service and experience for the more than 450,000 kids each week who tune to children's programs on TV12. Based on a sturdy armature of television shows, public workshops and community partnerships, RTL is designed to play a key role in the healthy cognitive and emotional development of young children in our region.

RTL begins with 11 hours of trustworthy children's programming each weekday on WHYY-TV. Using the broadcast schedule as the starting point, certified WHYY staff members ran 72 workshops in community settings for parents, early childhood educators and childcare providers. These accredited workshops -- conducted in both English and Spanish -- focus on literacy, communication, problem-solving and behavioral issues.

Denyce Graves' special for WHYY was incorporated into a music history lesson plan to be used in high schools throughout the country.
	Watch a clip from the WHYY-original production Denyce Graves: Breaking the Rules.

The effectiveness of WHYY's RTL service, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this fiscal year, was boosted with three additional projects: First Books Program, In the Spirit of Family seminars, and national education initiatives.

Through First Books, RTL continues to distribute 300 new children's books each month free of charge to children who would not have any or enough books to read.

The Children's Service also teamed with WHYY-FM's Voices in the Family host Dan Gottlieb, Ph.D., for a new four-part series, In the Spirit of Family. These off-air experiences -- later broadcast on Voices -- explored topics ranging from "The Overscheduled Child" to "The Special Needs Child," from "The Diverse Spectrum of Parenting" to "Spirituality and Moral Development in the Family."

Solidifying its commitment to community partnership, outreach and education, the Children's Service teamed with the School District of Philadelphia to create a Web-based teacher's guide for national distribution to accompany the WHYY-TV Emmy-Award winning production Denyce Graves: Breaking the Rules. The inventive "Teaching Through Music" toolkits contained engaging materials to help educators incorporate music history and education into their lesson plans.

These initiatives are invaluable multi-platform experiences that enriched and furthered the lifelong learning mission of WHYY as a whole, and the Children's Service in particular.