History
Harriet Marmon Helmle and other concerned San Antonio business people committed to reducing functional illiteracy among the youth of our city founded San Antonio Youth Literacy in 1984. SAYL developed a media-based literacy program for at-risk high school students to combat illiteracy in San Antonio's high schools. The original program addressed illiteracy through the then
innovative medium of video production. Students worked with video cameras, TV monitors, still cameras, and tape recorders. They worked in teams to write scripts, interview community leaders, and produce video segments that were interesting and relevant to teens.
The original program successfully taught literacy and technical and communication skills. It also fostered students’ self-image. Eventually, public school systems incorporated many of the elements of the SAYL program into the mandatory curriculum for all high school students. SAYL, as a result, developed the “Let’s Read!” program to
attack the problem of illiteracy at an earlier age.
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