Unlocking the creativity and power of every young person

Racial equity Resources
In 2018 Oak’s Learning Differences Programme partnered with OpenSource Leadership Strategies to conduct a racial equity assessment of the LDP and to gather insights about the broader field of learning differences. To inform the equity assessment, the LDP invited its current grantees to participate in a survey and asked OpenSource to analyse the findings, conduct interviews with more than a dozen leaders in the learning differences and racial equity fields and bring their own expertise and analysis to shape their assessment.

The LDP initially shared the findings of this assessment through a July 2018 webinar hosted by OpenSource Leadership Strategies. Below are the video and powerpoint deck presented during the July 2018 webinar.

Rethinking the Way Learning Happens
Based on interviews with students, families, teachers, and leaders, the LDP identified several attributes we believe are critical to realising our vision of building a world in which schools unlock the creativity and power of students with learning differences – along with every young person – and equip them to shape more just and equitable communities. To learn more about these attributes, click on the document below. Within the document, you can find links to a Resource Library aimed at supporting practitioners working to build those attributes and an Assessment Library to identify metrics and assessments for monitoring student development of the attributes.

LDP Partner-Developed Resource Guide
The Learning Differences Programme is committed to Oak-supported resources being freely available to help diverse learners thrive. In this resource guide you can learn of some of the tools and resources that support students with learning disabilities and learning differences and their educators and families. We hope you will find them useful.

Research to Action: Improving K-3 Literacy Instruction for Students with Learning Differences
Oak Foundation partnered with Education First, a national education strategy and policy consulting organisation, to research efforts to improve students’ literacy in the early grades of their schooling, with special attention to supporting students with learning differences.

Across the U.S., there is a renewed focus on improving students’ early literacy, especially given stagnant reading scores across the nation. Oak Foundation aims to contribute to this work by helping the field build educator knowledge and skill in the science of learning and early literacy. We offer this landscape scan on early literacy to help funders and others in the education sector make decisions to meet the challenge of improving reading instruction for all students, particularly those who have learning differences, and those who are further marginalized due to poverty and/or racism. The landscape scan focuses particularly on educators’ initial preparation and ongoing development as well as the role of high-quality instructional materials and support.

Education First originally developed this resource for the Oak Foundation to support its early literacy investments, and adapted the landscape scan in early 2020 as a public resource.