about us
Our Mission: Story Preservation Initiative believes in the transformative power of story to connect people around our common humanity and create a better future.
Our Work: We are a producer and online distributor of original, content-rich audio-based narratives for K-12 students. SPI stories are the raw materials of history, roadmaps to scientific discovery, and windows to the minds of artists and skilled tradesmen and women.
What We Achieve: SPI brings listeners into contact with extraordinary people whose stories engage their hearts and minds. These personal narratives impart content knowledge and foster curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking, opening doors to possible careers in professions associated with the arts, sciences, humanities, and skilled trades.
SPI was founded in 2010. We make our work available to all free of charge.
“When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.”
Our Initiatives
K-3 Learning
Lab
Storytelling and reading aloud to young children are the foundation for early literacy development and the single most important activities for later reading success. Our K-3 project integrates timeless and imaginative fictional stories, including folklore, fables, and contemporary stories, as told by a diverse group of master storytellers, into the online Learning Lab. The project fosters English Language literacy and social and emotional learning as it sparks kids’ imaginations.
4-12 Learning Lab
The Story Preservation grades 4-12 Learning Lab is a unique online collection of first-person narratives told by extraordinary people in the fields of the arts, sciences, humanities, and skilled trades, as well as eyewitnesses to history. All of our contributors tell stories that educate and inspire young people, foster creative and critical thinking, open pathways to possible career choice, and challenge them to be their personal best. SPI stories make learning real-world relevant.
“History is best taught and learned by the telling of stories. By listening to the stories of people who lived through the historical events and eras we study in class, students have felt a direct relationship to those events in a way that is otherwise difficult to achieve. Personal stories being told by the people who lived them is the “hook” that history teachers are so often looking for. I am so pleased to be able to use these accounts in my American History class. ”