Open Book Adventures is One Stone’s free tutoring and mentoring program for first and second grade students. Once a week for five weeks, the first and second grade “Buddies” are paired with a One Stone “Adventure Guide” for an hour and a half of reading, writing, games and connection. Open Book Adventures provides leadership opportunities for One Stone student members and forges an unparalleled bond between guide and buddy.

This Open Book Adventures session exceeded everyone’s expectations by achieving the best outcomes yet with an average 187% increase in reading proficiency from week 1 to week 5. Wow! Buddies were reading correctly nearly triple the amount of words in grade level testing by week 5!

How might we help reverse the ‘summer slide’ in literacy skills of underserved 1st-3rd graders?

Open Book Adventures is One Stone’s free literacy mentoring program for underserved youth across the Treasure Valley. During this summer’s second iteration of the project’s summer camp, thirty-five 1st–3rd grade “Buddies” were paired with One Stone student “Adventure Guides” for three full days of reading, writing, games, crafts and connection.

Open Book Adventures is One Stone’s free tutoring and mentoring program for underserved kindergarteners through third grade students. Once a week for six weeks, the K - 3rd grade “Buddies” are paired with a One Stone “Adventure Guides” for an hour and a half of reading, writing, games and connection.

How might we inspire a love of reading and writing in kids, while providing an opportunity to address summer learning loss?

Open Book Adventures is a tutoring and mentoring project for kindergarten through third grade children that inspires curiosity, and cultivates imagination through adventures in literacy. Using the design thinking process, the One Stone team has prototyped and tested the program, resulting in multiple iterations. For the first time this summer, the team decided to roll out a multi-day summer camp, providing a no-cost opportunity for kids to stay engaged in learning during the summer.

How might we improve literacy skills for underserved kids in K – 3rd grade?Open Book Adventures was One Stone’s fourth iteration of our original literacy program for underserved kids. The student leadership team has learned through our past prototypes that themes that are accessible and provide multiple ways to express help to make the learning more fun for the kids, so this time, they chose color as a theme. Each week, 20 K – 3rd grade kids and their One Stone reading buddies took the color theme all the way through, dressing in the color of the week, eating snacks in the same color and doing color-centered writing and drawing activities together.

One Stone continued to prototype and test the Open Book Adventures literacy project, in it’s iteration during the Fall of 2014. This round of OBA focused on reading and writing around the theme, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We highlighted career choices ranging from firefighters to rockstars—everyone got a chance to explore their future dreams and ambitions through books and encouragement from their One Stone Adventure Guides.

One Stone continued to prototype and test the Open Book Adventures literacy project, in it’s next iteration, themed around animals. One Stone Adventure Guides developed lessons disguised as games that led to dramatic improvement in reading, writing and overall communication. Additionally, over the course of the 6 –week program, the ability to create barnyard animal noises improved dramatically.