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Literacy programs choose Hoopoe Books to help children build language and reading skills
Now in its ninth year, our Hoopoe Books Share Literacy Program has donated over 250,000 books nationwide. We ensure that every child who participates in our programs receives at least one book to take home and keep. WHY ARE BOOKS IN THE HOME IMPORTANT?
Being read to as a child and having books in the home are the two most important indicators of future academic success. Yet families who live at or below the federal poverty level cannot afford to buy books and seldom have books in the home. Children exposed to books and reading during preschool
years enter kindergarten with the ability to understand 20,000 words,
versus 3,000 words for those children who do not have this exposure. Unfortunately, studies also show that if a child’s reading and vocabulary level is not in the higher range it is difficult for them ever to catch up. The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence and crime is welded to reading failure. There is growing recognition among educators that the Teaching-Stories collected and written for children by Idries Shah and published by ISHK's Hoopoe Books are especially effective in the development of reading, language, and thinking skills in children of all ages. Originating from the rich storytelling traditions of Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East, these teaching tales were designed to teach children about themselves and their world. They activate analogical and critical thinking skills, foster social-emotional growth, intuition and perception. ISHK has a long list of requests for help from early childhood agencies and schools serving low-income children and their families who have all been severely hurt by the current economy. More often than not, there are not enough books and too little support for teachers: teaching resources and professional development training. Reading, comprehension and thinking skills are the specific skills these children need most to succeed in school and move beyond a life of poverty. With your support we can help them do this. Share Literacy relies on donations and grants to cover its direct expenses: production and printing of materials and professional development costs. To make a donation, please click here. DONATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS FOR THE CURRENT YEAR WILL BE MATCHED BY A GRANT FROM A PRIVATE FOUNDATION, WHO WILL DOUBLE YOUR GIFT! Books for Afghanistan Program These remarkable Teaching-Stories have been told by campfire and candlelight in Afghanistan for more than 1,000 years. They were selected and retold for Hoopoe Books by the Afghan author and savant, Idries Shah and have been commended by western educators for their unique ability to foster social-emotional development, thinking skills and perception in people of all ages. We will provide bilingual Dari and Pashto editions, plus the English editions, for distribution to schools, orphanages and libraries throughout Afghanistan.
Our mission: Our aim is to provide as many children as possible with their very own books, starting initially with a goal of providing 250,000 copies of each of the five Dari-Pashto titles already translated. At this time there are very, very few story books available in Afghanistan. Those in Dari or Pashto (their main languages) are even more scarce. Since there is a literacy rate of only 28% for Afghans over 15 years old, we hope these books will encourage family literacy as we return some of their own wonderful stories to the Afghan people in book form. Our vision is to see this happen for all the school-children of Afghanistan:
For at least 95% of these children, these will be the first books they own, and they may well be tales that their grandparents recognize from their own childhood. For the older, more conservative Afghans, we hope that repatriating these stories in book form will be a comforting bridge to literacy and the development of skills that the younger generations will need in order to survive and contribute in the modern world. To do this, we have an arrangement to print in Afghanistan on a continuous basis and placing orders as we raise the funds to cover costs. To date, five Dari-Pashto bilingual titles are press-ready, with Teacher Guides in both languages to accompany them. 250,000 copies of “The Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water” have already been printed and distributed, and we are currently printing 40,000 copies of “The Boy Without a Name” in a Dari-Pashto bilingual edition. These will be distributed to some of the organizations who have asked for help. We will print more as soon as we have the funds to do so. Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school-age (ages 7-12) children in the world: 20% of nearly 33 million people and only six million of whom are in school.(Afghanistan’s Millennium Development Goals, World Bank and USAID.) Schools have very limited resources and books are rare. If you are in touch with organizations in Afghanistan that might need these books and teacher guides, or know of NGOs that are able to cover the cost of the books they need themselves, please write to Sally Mallam at the email address, hoopoebooks @ aol.com, with the contact information, or put them in touch directly with her. Our progress so far: We have a key translator and compositor in Kabul. Final translations are checked for accuracy by translators from the BBC Dari and Pashto World Service. We have signed a Partnership Agreement with Ms. Fatima Gailani, President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS). ARCS will assist us with receiving, transporting and distributing future books. ARCS has a youth program in 24 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces which is supported by the organization's network of 41,000 volunteers including school teachers and government employees.
 Should you wish to see the books in question, the International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) has made the English, Spanish, Dari and Pashto editions of Hoopoe Books available on their site. Dari and Pashto editions of the five titles we have to date are readable at this website: www.childrenslibrary.org (on the “Read Books” drop down tab, do a “keyword search” for Hoopoe Books).
 We have donated 4,400 English paperbacks to International Orphan Care, whose US office is in Laguna Beach and who handled the shipping to their programs. With each print run we plan to produce enough copies to keep the cost of each book, inclusive of ancillary materials, to a minimum – so even a small contribution will help us reach our goal! Please help if you can: OR by mailing your check payable to: ISHK, PO Box 176, Los Altos, CA 94023 USA. All donations are tax-deductible in the USA. IN ADDITION, WE ARE LOOKING FOR:
Please write to Sally Mallam, Director, at hoopoebooks @ aol.com or by fax at 650-948-9546 if you can help with the above or wish to purchase our Afghan editions. Books for Pakistan Program Your donation is desperately needed. Hoopoe Books/Share Literacy is now collaborating with DIL (Developments in Literacy) to donate these beautiful children’s books by Idries Shah to the children they serve. DIL runs 150 schools serving approximately 15,000 children, especially girls, in underdeveloped regions in Pakistan. These will be bilingual English and Urdu editions, so that children can read the Urdu translation and the English on the facing page. We are currently in the process of translating these titles and preparing the output files. The first two titles will be: The Lion Who Saw Himself in the Water and The Clever Boy and the Terrible, Dangerous Animal. They will be printed in Peshawar by Khatiz Organization for Rehabilitation (KOR), who is also printing our Dari and Pashto editions for Afghanistan. DIL will distribute the books to the children attending their schools. We hope to keep our costs to under one dollar per book and will be able to do this only if our print run is high enough. Please help us reach an initial 40,000 copies per title. We would like to do more than that and, with your help, we can. Please go to www.hoopoekids.com and check out these wonderful books and about Hoopoe.
 SOME EARLY CHILDHOOD READING PROGRAMS THAT RECEIVED HOOPOE BOOKS: Fischler
Graduate School of Education and Human Services Learning Leaders,
New York City
Literacy Caravan,
Connecticut
First Book, San Antonio
(Texas) Chapter
Michigan Department
of Education
If you or someone you know is interested in co-sponsoring the printing and donation of Hoopoe Books to literacy programs, please contact us. To preview the illustrations, read reviews, download the free teacher manuals, and purchase the books at a special discount, visit our Hoopoe Books website. The NPR program “All Things Considered” featured Hoopoe stories in a program about Afghanistan. Hear the audio. © Copyright NPR® 2001.
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The
time from birth through age eight is the most critical for children
in acquiring the “building blocks” of literacy, yet an alarming
number of children today are entering school without the foundation
they need to succeed. 
National
Urban Alliance/Indianapolis Public Schools