Elmo has a new friend! And his name is, Chris Brown. Yep, folks, you read it right. The same, sexy singer who won our hearts with the hit song, "Kiss Kiss" is now singing "Let's see the signs" with Elmo on the streets of…Sesame. He's definitely doing his part to educate youngsters. In the song, Brown uses his great hip-hop skills to teach kids to read by looking signs and posters around them, not just by practicing with traditional books that may seem boring to some.

Many DoSomething users have taken a leaf out of Brown's book (no pun intended) and have created projects that feature other innovative ways for teaching children how to read. Literacy is an extremely important skill for people in today's world to have. Being able to read legal documents, for example, lowers incarceration rates in a country; less people will commit crimes accidentally if they can read and understand laws. Literacy also causes economic growth, because it opens doors to new job opportunities where people can make more money. Sadly, according to the World Factbook, the literacy rate in many developing countries is below 50%.

Clearly, Chris Brown's been trained well by Sesame Street, so he'll probably return the favor. Who knows, maybe we'll see Elmo rapping when we turn on MTV tomorrow.

Submitted by Shamsa Mangalji and Caroline Kotter