Child Aid was founded on one simple idea: Children need books.

When we discovered in the early 1990s that thousands of children in rural Guatemalan communities had no access to storybooks, our organization formed to do one thing well. And for several years, we did. Child Aid delivered Spanish-language books to makeshift libraries in some of Guatemala’s most impoverished communities. It worked fine.

Except, we wondered, how many children are actually accessing the books? And how many of these same children are learning how to read these books and not simply thumbing through them to look at the pretty pictures?

These questions kept us up at night, pacing the floor.

So, we thought, how about elementary schools? Most children show up and the schools have so few books and learning materials that teachers often pin up old newspapers to the wall for the children to see what printed words look like.

Hey, we thought, Child Aid could make a real difference in literacy in Guatemala if we delivered books to schools and stocked classrooms with seven books per child. So, we did. It worked fine.

Except, we wondered, how well are the children learning to read? Sure, now they have plenty of books to leaf through, but do they know how to critically understand the books they read?

These questions kept us up at night, pacing the floor.

So, beginning in 2010, Child Aid launched a comprehensive, four-year teacher training program to help educators teach reading, comprehension and critical thinking skills to children. And it really works.