Parents want to know the origin of the organizing literacy program, the actual DocOA™ organizers, and whether there is research and testing that was done to prove the efficacy of this innovative STEM tool building project. The answers to these questions and the best practices to create the tools were the result of a student parent project in 1993 that David Schwartz started with his son Zachary, a 3rd grader at FAY School in Southborough MA. Read the FAQ about why students started calling the pocket system Finder Binder.

Way back in 1993, David Schwartz, the father of organizing literacy, started a binder organizing project with his youngest son age 7 at the time. He was in 2nd grade and told his father he didn't want to buy school supplies, he wanted to make them. He knew we could, because his dad was leading the innovation in patenting a computer packaging concept for laptops called "the surface". In a heartbeat, his older brother adopted the system for his own use in highschool. Over a period of the next 7 years, David added a portfolio of patents for document organizing, had the products manufactured, and installed them in schools through out Massachussetts. The students fondly adopted the name Finder Binder because it was the answer to the perplexing question - where are all the notes, tests, quizzes, homeworks, and projects I need to study and share my learning in class and with my friends. Find out more by learning what a subscription to Organizing Literacy is.

This learning management system platform, Kajabi, is the place where you willl be able to get all the information you need to develop and implement The Schwartz Method for Organizing Literacy at home, as well as in your school. The initial framework is provided here and is offered to encourage parents and students to seriously consider whether this problem of disorganizing should be tackled. There's enough here to start and it costs nothing to try out the approach. In the near future, as early as the 2026 back to school, you will have access to the entire program. So make sure to sign up and get on our radar so we can update you when everything is ready. We're working on a complete parent-student curriculum you can use at home or as part of a sanctioned STEM project with your student at your school. So, today, i.e. right now, we are workiing with selected families and their students to make and use the DocOA™ binder organizer systems. The full program will be available in the Fall of 2026.

Fast forward 30 years (hard to believe) and what is going on is nothing short of amazing in so many ways. First, schools have all adobted the critical learning method of the STEM loop for innovation. Shark Tanks are arising everywhere. Older entrepreneurial students are engaging in innovation, and figuring out how to patent their ideas and become company founders or intrapreneurs. They're all doing this in the face of new technologies lead by the emerging AI large learning models. But the other amazing part is that after recent research by Schwartz, students starting as early as 3rd grade and going on thru elementary and highschool STILL HAVE DISORGANIZED BINDERS AND BACKPAKS...and are suffering under often unidentified anxiety, diminished learning by way of Actual Intelligence, and under performing academic outcomes. Even the students that are organized in 5th and 6th grade find that their methods are not scalable in middle and high school. So Schwartz has taken the results of all that early research and finder binder building and reintroduced the entire system in a set of supplies and methods for construction that any parent and student can put into practice today if they follow The Schwartz Method for Organizing Literacy shared here.