Volunteer Appreciation Lunches

Can't wait to celebrate with you! We are excited to be back at Jack's Abbey in Framingham and to try a new venue, Dorchester Brewing Co. in Boston. Invitations went out by email this week, so please respond over there to let us know if you can make it — and reply to this email if you didn't receive yours.

School Calendar Notices

April Vacation: 4/20-4/24- no sessions

Boston Public School Calendar

Chelsea Public School Calendar

Framingham Public School Calendar

Your Safety: Our volunteer safety is very important to us, which we are particularly mindful of this time of year. If you feel unsafe traveling to a site due to weather, conditions, parking, etc., please notify your site team leader and / or program staff when you are not be able to be at site. We want you to be safe and NOT brave dangers to get to your site.

Literations follows Boston, Framingham, and Chelsea Public School closures during inclement weather. Please review our Snow Policy for details on program closures, event cancellations, and weather-related communications.

Upcoming Events

• Final Hub Office Hour — This Friday March 6 | 1–2pm
• Got questions about logging in, session entry, or timesheets? Drop in for live support. Zoom info can be found under Timesheets and Session Entry on the Link!
• Note: Please email programsupport@literations.org with any Hub questions.

• Lighting the Spark — Wednesday April 15 | 5:30pm
• We warmly invite our volunteer literacy coaches to join us at our annual celebration of Literations’ impact. You can purchase half-price tickets below and enjoy a meaningful evening honoring the students and communities you help uplift.
• Buy tickets here

Boston Marathon

Literations is hitting the pavement at the Boston Marathon this year! We’ve got five amazing runners—including our own Andy Smith from Stapleton—running to raise money and awareness for our students, and we’d love for our volunteer community to be part of the excitement.

We’re hosting two fun ways to show your support:



• 🎨 Marathon Poster Party: Wednesday, April 8 at 12 PM

Join us at the Literations office to make colorful posters and cheer signs for our runners. We’ll provide the supplies—you bring the creativity and enthusiasm!

• 📣 Marathon Cheer Squad: Monday, April 20 (time and location TBD)

Come out along the marathon route and help us create a loud, proud Literations cheering section. It’s a great chance to celebrate our runners and show the power of the Literations community.

Sign up for both here.

Celebrate Women's History Month

March is Women’s History Month! Check out the LINK to explore read-aloud ideas, RAZ Books , and articles highlighting women’s contributions, including pieces from the National Women’s History Museum, Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, and History.com. You’ll also find curated book lists, plus local events like programs at the Boston Public Library and the Women Take the Reel Film Festival.

Coaching Quick Tips

Encouraging Student Reflection with the Fluency Rubric

Metacognition (thinking about one's own thinking and learning process), a growth mindset, and resilience have all been shown to predict long-term success as much as or more than traditional methods of measuring intelligence, such as academic grades or IQ. 

We incorporate these three powerful practices into reading coach sessions with tools such as the Fluency Rubric. Have you been using the rubric to talk about their reading goals at the start of sessions with students in the fluency program? 

During the review and reflect portion of the session, do you use the Fluency Rubric to help students rate their own performance? Using the rubric can help focus students on reading quality.

Being consistent in using the rubric offers a structured self-reflection that helps students build in this habit even when reading on their own. This creates more confident and self-directed learners. 

We encourage you to review this short video clip from pre-service training that covers using the Fluency Rubric with your students.