About Us

Jodie Peters is a Reading Peer Coach and Rob Murphy is a 6th grade ESL teacher at Francis Hammond Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia.  After reading Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys by Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm, about how and why boys struggle with literacy, they decided to do something about the reading achievement gap that affects the boys in their school. 

 

Jodie and Rob started the Boys In Literacy Initiative (BILI) which takes research findings and puts them into practical school-based applications.  Club BILI is an after-school monthly book club that focuses on the types of literature and subjects boys are interested in reading about.  The social all-male environment help present literacy in a positive and masculine way.  Combining choice and agency, socialization opportunities, real-world connections and texts that match the adolescent male experience, BILI helps motivate all types of readers: those who can’t read; those who don’t read and those who won’t read.