Hi friends! SHHHHH! I have been working on something, and I can’t keep it a secret any more! But don’t tell everyone just yet…
I’m not ready to shout it to the WHOLE world, but just couldn’t wait to give you a sneak peak into an exciting new project I’m planning to launch in early 2017. I really look forward to your feedback!
You may notice I’ve been updating my social media profiles and testing out a redesign to my website, which will still be around at Farrellink.com
While I’m keeping the website, I closed Farrell Ink LLC as an organization last year. In 2017, I will be building a new social enterprise called Mustard Seed Teaching, which will work closely with the existing non-profit Mustard Seed Books.
Check out our first two FREE courses!
You know how much I love sharing FREE study materials! Dr Rick Chan Frey and his team at Mustard Seed Books developed a series of 1st grade level readers that anyone can view, download or print for free. That’s TWENTY FREE BOOKS for 1st graders! Having a first grader myself, I decided I had to tell the world about these cool books.
But sharing the books is just the beginning…
Mustard Seed Books has the potential to go way beyond the existing original series. We want to develop a community of authors so that teachers, parents, and even kids can write their own Mustard Seed Books to share with the world. It’s not rocket science to write a 1st grade book, after all, and turns out to be quite a bit of fun!
With my background in adult literacy, I instantly saw these elementary school books as adaptable for adult beginning readers as well.
Mustard Seed Books has the potential to address a major crisis in our field: we don’t have enough high-interest, beginning-level readers for adults, nor do we have many high-quality mobile apps for that demographic. Sure, there are some really awesome book series available on the market, and some great desktop-based software that has converted to mobile friendly.
But adult literacy publishers and programs alike are struggling to keep their doors open. The financial pinch means open source content is taking over. Mustard Seed Books offers a simple, engaging method to make that movement relevant to beginning adult readers. AND make reading materials easily accessible on any device, online OR offline!
“We don’t have enough high-interest, low level readers for adults.”
So I started daydreaming, as I often do…..
WHAT IF…
instead of writing books FOR adult educators, we wrote them WITH adult educators?
WHAT IF…
instead of writing books for a NATIONAL audience, we wrote them for LOCAL contexts?
WHAT IF…
instead of writing separate science, social studies, language arts, and math courses, we COMBINED them in a series of short and fun-to-read books?
WHAT IF…
we encouraged readers and parents and teachers to write and share their OWN stories?
WHAT IF…
high-demand entry level jobs had short, easy-to-follow training manuals?
That’s just a first glimpse at my vision for Mustard Seed Teaching. I hope you’re getting as excited as I am!
Starting in the spring, I will be offering a LIMITED NUMBER of online and face-to-face workshops to bring Mustard Seed Books to the world of adult literacy and workforce development. The workshops are not quite ready for prime time yet, but I wanted to share these FREE materials with you first, my most loyal readers.
PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!
I’m very open to improvements, and eager to talk with you about possibilities to get involved. Please feel free to comment, email, or schedule a call. But most importantly…
Enroll in the first two FREE courses today!
Think of it as an early holiday gift from me to you. Hope you enjoy!
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