A short history of CommonLit Español…
CommonLit’s mission is to help students thrive through high quality literacy instruction. Back in 2018, we received a generous grant to expand our impact globally by offering Spanish Language Arts resources. Since that time, CommonLit developed, launched, and maintained a Spanish lesson library, “CommonLit Español”, which was originally designed for students in Latin America. We partnered with ministries of education and trained thousands of teachers in Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, and more. The program grew to support tens of thousands of students in Latin America, including many students in areas without consistent internet access.
The result of this work was a suite of valuable Spanish literacy materials that found success with educators across Latin America as well as in the U.S., especially within bilingual programs.
While we are extremely proud of the impact realized through CommonLit Español, we have found it increasingly challenging to find continued philanthropic funding for this work. After careful consideration, we've decided to shift our strategy. Moving forward, we will focus on meeting the needs of teachers in English Language Arts classrooms here in the U.S. To this end, we are retiring CommonLit Español and our related offerings, including Lecciones Guiadas and our aligned professional development that supports these specific products. That said, we remain committed to supporting the needs of multilingual students in the United States and look forward to further work to ensure we meet these growing needs with products specifically designed for this audience.
Here's what this means for CommonLit Español users:
Starting December 16th, 2024, the CommonLit Español library and related resources will no longer be available to most teachers on CommonLit. Educators will still be able to use and access any previously assigned Spanish texts or Lecciones Guiadas with their students, but they won’t be able to assign new texts or Lecciones Guiadas after December 16th. The program will be fully retired on July 1, 2026. In addition, while we will continue to offer our student-facing translation tool on English texts and lessons, teachers will no longer be able to access our Spanish-language website and interface.
Looking Forward…
We're incredibly proud of the impact that CommonLit Español realized both in Latin America and the U.S., and we’re looking forward to strengthening our support for multilingual learners on CommonLit within the context of their English Language Arts classrooms. Instead of separate Spanish language resources, we're developing integrated language resources and features within our English Language Arts core curriculum in order to support a broader population of English learners. Our goal is to ensure students receive strong Tier I, grade-appropriate instruction. With the completion of Edition 2.0 of the CommonLit 360 Curriculum for High School, we're exploring ways to incorporate stronger supports for language learners and resources for teachers while maintaining academic rigor.
We understand this change may impact your planning and instruction, and our team is committed to supporting you through this transition and with your students' success with our English Language Arts materials.
Thank you for being part of the CommonLit Español journey. While this chapter is closing, we're excited about what’s in store as we move toward building more inclusive, integrated support for all language learners.
Michelle Brown
CEO, CommonLit
