In a library on the edge of Regent Park, Rayon reads aloud from a textbook while his classmates follow along. It is a typical classroom scene-except for what Rayon is reading. “In 1979, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by The Sugarhill Gang became the first rap song to be recognized by the mainstream,” he says. This boy is not enrolled in your average after-school program.

Rayon and 19 other children aged 7-12 are participating in an innovative new program called Literacy Through Hip Hop (LTHH), a class that seeks to help children in some of Toronto’s low-income communities who are struggling with literacy. LTHH was conceived by two students, Shahmeer Ansari and Jason Shrouder-Henry, in order to target kids who they felt were being let down by the regular education system.

“There are huge barriers for people without literacy skills,” said Ansari, a third year commerce student at U of T, “and youth of colour meet different barriers [than other Canadians]. The education system is not really aimed at these kids…they would be losing out if there wasn’t a program geared to them.”

Although hip hop is widely seen as anything but educational, the initial success of LTHH suggests otherwise. Ansari and Shrouder-Henry have demonstrated that the verbal agility and impressive vocabularies exhibited by many of the world’s best rappers can be instructional to kids. Part of their curriculum-which was designed in conjunction with U of T linguistics professor Kristin Phan-involves playing hip hop songs to the children, who then are charged with writing down all the lyrics. They then point out all the words they don’t understand and discuss them.

Ultimately, the students will write and record their own hip hop songs and produce their own compilation CD.

A secondary goal of LTHH is to dispel the popular image of hip hop as being about nothing but luxury, violence, and the objectification of women. “Hip hop is a positive force,” explained Ansari, “although right now it’s being used very negatively in the mainstream.” He insists that artists like 50 Cent and Eminem have hijacked the genre and steered it away from its roots. “Originally, hip hop was a force for change,” he said, in reference to its emergence in 1970’s New York in response to poor conditions in the city’s urban, low-income, and racially diverse communities.

LTHH only uses songs by artists like Talib Kweli and Immortal Technique, who the program directors say have stayed true to hip hop’s original socially conscious message.

A typical day at LTHH is hectic. Many of the students, who were referred to the program through three local schools and a community organization, are not only struggling with literacy but have behavioural problems as well. Even when teaching in groups of four or five, the volunteers have their hands full. But the kids are almost as enthusiastic about spelling as they are about causing trouble. Getting a word right in the program’s frequent spelling bees sends them into a flurry of excitement. They sometimes break away from their teachers only to challenge each other to spell a certain word.

It appears their enthusiasm is paying off. Ansari tells the story of one of the program’s biggest successes. Quiet 7-year old Tisean is one of the youngest kids in LTHH. His mother had never heard anything positive about her son from his teachers at school. “After a couple of days he read better than anyone in the class,” said Ansari, “He didn’t want to stop.”

LTHH is garnering so much attention that there is talk of larger organizations taking the program to the national level, which is good news for Canada’s underprivileged children. “Ideally what we want is for these kids to have the same chance as people from more privileged backgrounds,” said Ansari, “we want to get it into their heads that they can do whatever anyone else can do.”