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Art Links to Literacy

 

Art Links to Literacy

Art Links to Literacy is an educational outreach initiative to Washington, D.C., public elementary school communities in some of the city's most underserved, low-income neighborhoods.

The program emphasizes how art, combined with reading and writing, can instill a lifelong love of learning while enhancing the school curriculum and practice. It creates a community of learning that integrates school and family life, provides interactive learning through works of art at the Phillips, and encourages family experiences. Art Links to Literacy has two components: family nights and the museum-school component.

Family nights at participating schools provide students, parents, and caregivers with dinner, parent workshops, student reading sessions, and book giveaways.

The museum-school component champions an arts-integrated curriculum. It provides teachers with hands-on tools to help students develop critical thinking skills across the curriculum while empowering the students as artists and community members. The program includes free art materials, teacher professional development, classroom visits with arts-integrated modeling, school field trips focusing on object-based learning, and student art exhibitions displayed at the Phillips. 

The program, launched in 2002 with a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, is designed as a national model, demonstrating how community organizations, museums, teachers, and families can collaborate to help children meet high academic standards, create stronger schools, and strengthen ties between museums and their communities.

Art Links to Literacy was designed in partnership with D.C. Public Schools and the education nonprofit organization Turning the Page. In 2007, it was recognized as an Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education at the 22nd Annual Mayor’s Art Awards.

To see Art Links to Literacy projects, go to the Children's Art Gallery for Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series and select from the schools listed under the Phillips Art Links heading.

For more information, contact the Education Department at 202-387-2151 x216.

Art Links to Literacy is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Bank of America Foundation, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, Ethel & Irvin Edelman Foundation, Mark and Carol Hyman Fund, Hattie M. Strong Foundation, the Harman Family Foundation, and Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation.