Hi there! We're sisters Becky and Jenny. Ever since 2010, we've been teaching great books to kids in fun, creative, hands-on ways. Now we help educators like you do the same—so kids want to read more!
We do that by sharing our free creative teaching ideas for great books. We also offer sets of worksheets and activity printables for sale.
If you're looking for classes for your kids, see our current on-demand video workshops and live-on-Zoom courses for kids and teens.
The LitWits way of teaching is like STEM for literature. While your kids are having fun doing something a character did, they’re learning what that character learned. That might be a survival tip, a gymnastics trick, a writing skill, a history lesson, or any of ten thousand things that are good to know.
Because everything in a great book is there for a reason; nothing is random or extra.The author chose each detail on purpose, with intention. So every object and action is embedded with good-to-know stuff, including life skills and writing skills, all demonstrated by the story, rather than overtly taught.
Yet those good-to-know things CAN be brought out and taught, and your kids will be most receptive while they're doing what the character did as s/he learned them in the first place. Weaving short worksheets in between activities helps lessons stick, while keeping energy and engagement high.
Whether you're teaching or we are, LitWitting pays off. While kids are doing what a character did, they’re learning what that character learned: big skills that help them get through life and school. They're gaining confidence and character. They're developing their imaginations. They're gaining writing, critical thinking, and coping skills. Best of all, they're finding out that great books can be great fun.
Teaching the LitWits way is easy and fun! We're happy to share our 13 years of kid-tested, free, fun, creative ways to teach great books. The Ideas page for each book is packed with hands-on activities, instructions, teaching points, curated learning links, and more.
You can also get all the worksheets and activity printables to go with those free ideas, for one low price. We can even teach your kids for you, if you'd like a break!
That's because kids who read more great books learn more great things. Not just geography and history, and language and coping skills, but character—how to become the best human being they can be.
We're the daughters of two teachers who introduced us to great books and raised us on an old apple farm in Watsonville, California with two brothers and another sister—that's Amy next to the window. We spent our childhoods reading in orchards and nooks, always stopping to taste, build, act out, smell, create, or otherwise do what the characters did. And that's how we deeply remembered those stories, and soaked up their embedded lessons, over all the years since!
We knew our experiences of books had helped us through both school and life, so when we grew up we made literature real for our own kids too--with the same effect. In 2010 we founded LitWits* and started "doing what the characters did" with other people's kids. It's been our mission to get more kids into great books, because we know firsthand, as students and teachers, what a powerful influence those stories are.
Please reach out anytime - we'd love to hear from you!
Becky & Jenny