Literacy:
Spanning the U.S.
Benton County Council Gives Gift Of
Literacy
NWAOnline:
1.01.2015 by Melissa Gute
BENTONVILLE -- Ahmad Aziz sketched a
simple floor plan of his home. His literacy tutor told him to label each room.
"This is the kitchen,"
Aziz said, then began to say the letters as he wrote them.
"K-i-c-h..."
"No," Chuck Kovach, his
tutor, said softly to indicate Aziz missed something.
"K-i," Aziz began again.
"T-c-h-e-n."
"That's right," Kovach
said. "You got it."
The two moved around the diagram to
each room -- the living room, bathroom, each bedroom -- then moved outside to
the sidewalk, driveway and garage.
Aziz has been going to the Literacy Council of Benton County three times
a week for five weeks. He moved from Afghanistan to Bentonville with his wife
and three children in August.
Aziz was a driver for the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, for six years. He learned to speak English, but
cannot read or write it.
About two years ago, Aziz decided
to apply for a special immigration visa in order to bring his family to the
U.S., he said. An embassy worker from Bella Vista suggested he moved to
Northwest Arkansas.
Life is dangerous in Afghanistan,
Aziz said. A bomb could explode in front of, or beside, a person as they walked
down the street, he said. It would end in one of two ways. READ
MORE !
Literacy volunteerism is her goal
Altus
Times: 1.01.2015
New Year resolutions usually cover
personal goals. Janie Velazquez of Altus has a goal, not for herself, but to
help others with literacy tutoring. A week ago, she contacted the Great Plains Literacy Council at
the Altus Public Library to
express her 2015 resolution.
She was not a stranger to the local
literacy program as she had been an adult learner in 2008. Connie McQuinn had
been her volunteer tutor and helped Janie with the success of learning English
and passing the citizenship test to become a United States citizen. Now that
her youngest child Hector, who was born 16 days before her naturalization
ceremony, is in school, she wants to give back to literacy and become a tutor.
“I am employed at the Altus
Intermediate School,” said Velazquez. “I will attend a training next Wednesday
at the library to learn about available resources to help me as a teacher. I
plan to donate once a week an hour or two in an afternoon as a tutor. I believe
it is important to give back to the community by helping an adult needing to
read better or reach their own personal goals.”
After the training, Velazquez will
be matched with an adult learner in a one-to-one weekly session, usually for
one hour. Some tutors have enjoyed it so much that they have remained in the
program for many years! Volunteer tutors are matched with students according to
a mutual schedule.
“Imagine what life must be like for
those who can’t read or have low English skills,” stated GPLC Coordinator Ida
Fay Winters. “Non-readers face daily challenges because of this problem. Taking
care of daily business, such as reading letters, recipes and prescription
labels, is frustrating. Even reading a book to a child is a pleasure
non-readers don’t experience.’ READ MORE !
Del. library worker gives gift of
literacy
DelmarvaNow:
1.03.2015 by Rachael Pacella
Leafing through the most simple
book, teaching basic letters and sentences, Joan Loewenstein is moved when she
remembers the first time she entered a library as a child.
She was awestruck. And she
remembers the exact moment she loved reading. She was in second grade, and she
was reading a story about animals who had personalities.
"It makes me sad if people
can't read. It would open them up to so many things. A book, to me, is like
having a friend. If you're sad, you read and it can make you happy," she
said. "I think reading is a gift."
It is a gift that some people never
get, for one reason or another. Some speak English as a second language, others
have had learning disabilities or emotional problems that prevented them from
learning fully in school. The estimates for illiteracy in Sussex County are
old, last completed in 2003, but that year the National Center for Education Statistics estimated 11 percent of
people lacked the basic skills needed to search, comprehend and use continuous
texts while reading.
This causes a number of problems,
according to Loewenstein. People can't read medicine labels properly, have
trouble finding jobs and if they have a job, have trouble advancing.
"I think it really helps the
whole community if everyone knows how to read," Loewenstein said.
It is for those reasons that she
started an Adult Literacy program at the Frankford
Public Library about three months ago, which has now gained six students. READ
MORE !
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