About Us
Josh and Gwen began their work together to improve the literacy development of African American students during the summer of 2010. During that time, they collaborated on the Saginaw/Oakland Literacy Project (SOLP), a community-based participatory research project that focused on teaching reading skills to K-8 African American students.
Our Story
Sites included St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, where Vince, (Josh’s dad and Gwen’s husband) is pastor, as well as Houghton-Jones Neighborhood Community Center. St. Paul and Houghton-Jones are located in the neighborhood where Gwen and Vince grew up.
During the project, Josh and Gwen were challenged to identify literature that met the needs of their students, including children’s books by Black authors. Although culturally responsive books were purchased to use for the project, many students did not have the same kinds of books at home.
The following summer, they worked together again with the local school district to provide reading resources for teachers and culturally responsive literature. They realized that it was important to provide at-home resources for students in their neighborhood. The duo recruited adult community volunteers to purchase a book for each student.
For the next several years, they continued to work with students and school teachers trying to improve literacy teaching and learning in schools. Because there are multiple mandates and changes in state standards across the education industry, Josh and Gwen understood the difficulty that teachers face. They’re often too inundated to participate in additional professional development sessions during the academic school year. So, summer sessions provided teachers a chance to learn innovative instructional strategies, as well as build closer relationships with students, parents, and community partners.
In 2016, a new partnership perspective was launched, with a focus on community partners offering tutoring for 2nd and 3rd grade students. Gwen helped her brother organize the project, and she provided professional development for the tutors in response to the 3rd Grade Reading Law in Michigan. The idea was to support teachers by aligning the tutoring sessions with state standards, and tailoring tutoring sessions to meet the specific needs of students. This allowed teachers to spend their time working on classroom instruction with the understanding that additional assistance would be provided for certain students.
During this same time, Joshua was tutoring at-risk students in inner-city Detroit. He found the literature that was being used was not culturally responsive, and students were disengaged, unmotivated, and their reading abilities were not improving.
In 2019, the Wolverine State Missionary Baptist Convention sponsored a pilot study entitled I Read, I Lead, I Succeed. Gwen recruited community adult volunteers from African American churches to teach foundational reading skills to K-5 students. Josh was a high school teacher at the time; he helped organize professional development sessions and choose literature for the tutoring sessions.
This community partnership has continued to develop and currently includes around 18 African American churches and has expanded across several cities, including Flint, Michigan. When COVID-19 forced the project to move from face-to-face to virtual sessions, finding online culturally responsive literature was extremely difficult, and the need for access became more apparent. Josh and Gwen took on the challenge to search for educational products that are engaging, motivating, interesting, and inspiring.
Thus, ROOTEDin was birthed with the goal to provide culturally responsive literature about Black cultural figures, with content that has proven to be engaging to K-5 students. ROOTEDin helps K-5 students learn the value of Black cultural knowledge and develop foundational reading skills—all while enjoying the experience.
Josh and Gwen also co-founded ROOTEDin HOPE a 501(c)3 non profit organization that focuses on increasing access to culturally responsive materials and services for ALL scholars.
ROOTEDin
Generational Wealth Podcast
The ROOTEDin Generational Wealth podcast was created to teach intellectual, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual wealth to listeners. Go on a journey with Josh as he discusses these topics in the form of conversations with family, friends, and colleagues.