Throughout LitWorld’s 15 year history, we have seen time and time again how access to safe, joyful learning can transform lives. These spaces are especially critical when preventing the “summer slide”: a phenomenon where children lose significant knowledge during out-of-school time. This slide can set young learners—particularly those from low-income families—back in their education by years, depriving them of the opportunity to reach their full potential.
That’s why we developed LitCamp: a breakthrough program that redefines summer learning by using social and emotional support as the gateway to literacy. Together with Scholastic, LitCamps ensure that every child has the chance they deserve to learn, grow, and thrive.
LitCamp began as a seed idea in 2010 when our partners in Harlem, NY and Nairobi, Kenya expressed their community's needs for joyful learning during out-of-school time. That summer, the LitWorld team co-created LitCamps: safe spaces for stories flexible enough to be enjoyed anywhere, any time.
In 2015, we decided to bring the joy of LitCamp to even more children by partnering with Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books. Together, LitWorld and Scholastic developed a structured version of the program for summer schools across the United States. Today, LitCamp and its many iterations (including LitCamp en Español and LitCamp at Home) are run across thousands of classrooms every summer, engaging over a million young learners since 2015.
