At Sincerely Yours we believe that children of all ages, from every country, economic condition, race, religion, color, creed and ethnic group deserves the opportunity to develop friendships, enhance literacy skills, benefit from foreign language development and learn from and about people of diverse backgrounds and with varied experiences.

Students will find that not only can differences be vast, but that someone who on paper appears to be as different from you as A is to Z, you may have more in common with than you ever imagined! Developing these friendships can not only show our students how different we are as people, but how similar we can be as well. Our program offers them the opportunity to learn and gain much.

What an experience!


Literacy Benefits for Teachers

• Helps you discover new and exciting ways of bringing the curriculum to life in all subject areas including foreign language development.
• Enhances instruction and supports writing programs by allowing you to incorporate writing time into all areas of the curriculum.
• Helps students achieve and exceed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals, especially in the areas of reading and writing.
• Eliminates the achievement gap between successful and at-risk literacy students.
• Assists students studying English as a Second Language (ESOL) and foreign language development by improving their reading and writing skills in the targeted language.
  

Cultural Benefits for Teachers

• Creates an excellent resource for teaching children about other cultures and about the differences and similarities among people, especially among their pen pals.
• Provides a forum for helping you engender in students an appreciation for and an acceptance of cultural diversity.
• Enables you to model the concept of inclusion by inviting other teachers and students to participate as learning partners.
• Helps children to be fully comfortable in a diverse culture, thus preparing them to be the leaders of tomorrow and effectively function internationally.
  

Literacy Benefits for Students

• Helps students develop and improve written communication skills, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting and foreign language development.
  
• Teaches children how to establish dialogue with others by learning to formulate questions that will elicit informative responses from their pen pals.
  
• Encourages and teaches students to organize their thoughts and ideas before communicating them to others.
  
• Empowers children to write relevant letters about appropriate topics that are interesting to them.
  
  

Cultural Benefits for Students

• Facilitates a connection between students and their peers around the world in ways that are both educational and fun.
  
• Promotes friendships between students of different races, colors, creeds and religions.
  
• Creates partnerships with other students.
  
• Can help equip today’s students with the understanding and communication skills necessary to become leaders in our diverse society.