History of SCALE
The Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education (SCALE) was founded in the fall of 1989 when two Carolina undergraduate tutors, Lisa Madry and Clay Thorp, joined together to mobilize and support college students who wanted to address the literacy needs of this country. Lisa and Clay were inspired by the great tradition of student activism and saw literacy as a social justice issue.
While literacy education interested many students like Lisa and Clay, there was no national organization to support their programs or to network their leaders. Fueled by the belief that young people could have an impact on literacy, become leaders on their campuses, and raise awareness of literacy as a social justice issue, Clay and Lisa founded SCALE.
From its inception SCALE has been at the core of a robust network of campus-based literacy programs that fully involves students and their learners. Over the years, distinctive programs have offered in-depth trainings and resources to program administrators and participants and have provided opportunities for the exchange of information and ideas around the country. Past programs include the Regional Organizers Network, the Area Campus Training Project, Literacy Impact, and the Literacy Action Service Learning Network, Collaborative Leadership for Community Literacy, Student to Student, Project SHINE and Learning to teach, Learning to Serve.
We promote a participatory, learner-centered approach to literacy in which power in the program and in the classroom is shared with learners, volunteers, and community members. Shared decision making - about lesson content, choice of reading materials, or program evaluation - makes our outreach more relevant to individual and community literacy needs.
Today, SCALE sponsors Read. Write. Act., the annual and only national conference specifically for campus-based literacy programs and their community partners. SCALE promotes National Literacy Action Week, the first week of February, in order to increase awareness of this country’s literacy needs and to highlight the crucial role of college students in the literacy movement. Current SCALE programs include America Reads, the North Carolina LiteracyCorps and a partnership with the Carolina Language Partnership. In addition, SCALE offers a comprehensive Resource Library, a useful Toolkit including training workshop agendas and on-line trainings, and technical assistance for programs around the country.
