You Can Read! STEAM + Bots Family Literacy Integration Program

K-12 STEAM education

South LA

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Our You Can Read! STEAM & Bots Literacy Program in marginalized Los Angeles communities aims to eliminate adult illiteracy, the digital divide, and intergenerational low literacy cycles. In these communities, 33% of adults lack basic literacy skills, and almost half lack digital literacy needed for today's workforce. Additionally, children in these neighborhoods have limited access to STEAM resources, with less than 15% of elementary schools offering regular STEAM classes. Our program breaks this cycle by combining adult literacy training with project-based robotics and coding for children, providing a growth mindset approach to literacy and technology skills development.

You Can Read! STEAM & Bots Literacy Program leverages literacy as the entry point to robotics and STEM education, developing an effective connection between language arts and technology literacy. At its simplest, we've developed an innovative model where reading comprehension is utilized as the precursor to robotics coding. Our program generates parallel, experiential learning experiences in which adults and children learn literacy through paired robotics projects.
For children and adults, we illustrate how reading skill is directly transferable to coding:
· Phonics-Code Decoding: Just as sounding out words builds reading fluency, recognizing patterns in syntax and commands strengthens coding literacy.
· Reading Comprehension-Program Logic: Understanding the sequence of a story mirrors the step-by-step reasoning needed to design algorithms and debug programs.
· Vocabulary-Computational Language: Expanding word knowledge (characters, settings) parallels learning coding terms like variables, functions, loops, the building blocks for both storytelling and software.

The You Can Read! STEAM & Bots Literacy Program aims to break cycles of poverty by combining literacy and technology. This program in Los Angeles County will have a positive impact on the future by integrating early literacy with STEAM skills, creating a talent pipeline for the tech industry. By providing opportunities to students who have been historically underserved, we are reshaping the narrative for entire communities. Our goal is to show that every child and adult, regardless of their background, can not only become literate but also develop a vision for the future. Through learning to read with robots, both children and adults will become the diverse leaders driving innovation in LA's economy. #literacy #technology #innovation #opportunity.