About Us

LEAP (Language Empowers All People) builds speech, language,and communication skills that advance success in life,school, and work.

LEAP is a non-profit organization that conducts parent workshops, provides collaborative curricula for educators and teaches youth  in the metropolitan Chicago area. We use our language expertise to implement programs that build strong oral language foundations that prepare children and become proficient readers and learners.

LEAP was soon born to bridge this learning gap and give under-served children and teens an opportunity to increase their quality of life. After first working with the children themselves, Dr. Gottfred and her colleague, John Lybolt, Ph.D., decided to expand LEAP’s impact. Dr. Gottfred and Dr. Lybolt began training other teachers, tutors, and educators how to engage students in carefully structured lessons and activities that would cultivate oral and written language skills.

Thirty years later, LEAP continues to carry out its mission in low-resource classrooms across Chicago. With a highly experienced staff representing decades of collective experience, LEAP has reached tens of thousands of teachers and low-resource students and families through cutting-edge language and literacy development programs, impacting their clients’ professional and personal livelihoods.