At the beginning of April, Spectrum Fusion premiered their new series, Literacy Corner, on their YouTube channel. The series consists of Garrett Groogan, a 20 year old on the Autism Spectrum, reading books and stories for people of all ages. Garrett loves to read books, and does it with such enthusiasm while doing so.
The idea for Literacy Corner came up when Spectrum Fusion was working with Garrett, and noticed his enthusiasm for whenever he got to read a book. Spectrum Fusion eventually noticed there are YouTube channels that read children’s books, and realized that it’s something Garrett could do too.
Every Wednesday, Spectrum Fusion’s Media Team works with Garrett on Literacy Corner. These sessions consist of brainstorming what to read, and if there’s something picked out, the team sets up a green screen for Garrett to introduce the book in front of in order to start the episode being produced. After an intro gets filmed, Garrett is brought into the editing workstation where Media Team member Darren Logue sets up a microphone for the team to record Garrett reading the story on Adobe Audition. Afterwards, the post-production starts, and Darren edits the video to make it presentable for YouTube.
There are currently three episodes of Literacy corner out, where Garrett reads “The Hungry Lady and the Bear”, “When Do Hippos Play?”, and “Alejandro and the Bacon Breakfast”, with more stories to be read such as “The Velveteen Rabbit” and “Peter Rabbit”. The Media Team enjoys working with Garret, and loves seeing his enthusiasm when he reads. He even talks about how much he loved the book after he finishes, and even sometimes asks when he’ll be reading the next book. Things have been going great for this new series, and everyone involved hopes this can continue for many more episodes to come.
