WETA & Learning Media
WETA Washington, D.C., is the third-largest producing station for PBS. WETA's productions and co-productions include The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Washington Week with Gwen Ifilland and National Journal, and documentaries by filmmaker Ken Burns.
Elizabeth Campbell, the founder of WETA, once said there are three great educational institutions in this country: public schools, public libraries, and public television. Of these, public television is uniquely positioned to educate, entertain, inspire, and delight through local and national broadcasts and online services.
WETA's ongoing commitment to education is realized through national services that focus on making learning available to all. Over the last decade, WETA's Learning Media department has created and sustained four award-winning educational multimedia services:
LD OnLine provides accurate information about learning disabilities and ADHD to over 200,000 people each month. The site features hundreds of helpful articles, multimedia, first-person essays, and children’s writing and artwork. Monthly advice columns by noted experts, active forums, a comprehensive resource directory, and a Yellow Pages referral directory help parents, teachers, and people with learning disabilities decide what to do.
Reading Rockets looks at how young children learn to read, why so many struggle, and what we can do to help them. The website includes an archive of articles, professional development webcasts, interviews with children's authors, a daily headline service, two blogs, and much more. The Reading Rockets project also encompasses programs produced for PBS, including A Tale of Two Schools and a series called Launching Young Readers.
Colorín Colorado is a bilingual website designed for the parents and educators of English language learners. The website gives Spanish-speaking parents a wealth of information in their native language and gives teachers the information they need to be more effective in working with children for whom English is a second language.
Launched in late 2007, AdLit.org offers resources to the parents and educators of struggling readers and writers in grades 4-12. The site includes research-based articles, instructional material for classroom teachers, an Ask the Experts feature, a blog by a librarian and children's book reviewer, tips for parents, book recommendations, exclusive interviews with top authors, and a free monthly e-newsletter.