United Voices of Youth (UVOY)

Creating community partnerships to assist underserved individuals in discovering their voices and their talent to lead, starting with their ability to read.

UVOY believes that literacy improves the qualitiy of an individual's future and it is our aim to assit individuals from the stigma of being functionally illiterate to becoming literate.

UVOY operates the free literacy program called Back 2 Basics, a phonics based literacy program which uses music and rhyme to help facilitate the learning by the individual. 3 years ago, UVOY partnered with the University of Southern California Communication to research the benefits of incorporating the elements of music and rhythm into our existing phonics-based literacy curriculum. The University’s research indicated the accelerated improvement in language learning using these techniques along with individualized instruction for the participant to learn at their own pace. We conducted pilot programs with children, teens, adults, special needs and non-English speaking at various locations throughout Los Angeles, recognizing and documenting the adaption of the students’ interest and memory retention through the use of the oversized phonics flash cards, rhyme and music techniques used in the instruction. We titled the program “Back 2 Basics” as it returns to the simplicity of learning through the use of phonics and music. In the same manner that many of us learned our alphabet for the English language through the A,B,C song, improvement of spelling and reading can be simplified through similar methods.

We offer free adult literacy classes on weeknights and Saturday mornings.