Literacy: Spanning North America
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Pa. literacy council fights 'a bigger problem than most
people want to acknowledge'
Herald Mail Media: 4.02.2016 by Jennifer Fitch
Sonny Force turns in his
homework assignments more dependably than the junior high school students Don
Hallock taught for years.
“I’m used to 12-year-olds and
13-year-olds. I’ve adjusted well to (teaching) a 72-year-old,” Hallock said.
Hallock and Force were
brought together by the Franklin County (Pa.) Literacy Council as
tutor and student. Force is studying math, history and reading in his quest to
obtain a GED six decades after he dropped out of high school.
He is one of 60 people
enrolled in the program, and there's a waiting list behind him. That's why the
literacy council is searching for more volunteers like Hallock, a retired
teacher who started volunteering his time about five years ago.
“There are lots of people out
there who are not literate and could use our services. We always have more
students than tutors,” said Franklin B. Thomas, program coordinator.
Citing statistics that one in
five adults in the United States are not literate past an eighth-grade level,
Thomas said his organization's clients are generally U.S. natives who didn't
finish their K-12 education and immigrants whose primary language is not
English. READ MORE @
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| @Literacy609 |
Teaching people to read
boosts economy, nonprofit director says
Press of Atlantic City: 4.03.2016 by Maxwell Reil
Pamela Grites, 68, of Absecon,
has been working for nonprofits for almost 25 years. At the Literary Volunteers Association Cape-Atlantic,
she focuses on finding volunteers who can tutor locals in reading — something
she said is a necessity not only in South Jersey’s economy but throughout the
country.
Q: How did you start your
career in nonprofits 25 years ago?
A: I responded to an ad in the
paper that said the “hardest work you’ll ever love,” and it was a like a
throwback to the Peace Corps ads and I replied. I was a coordinator for the
Literacy Volunteers Association and became executive director. And we had
tremendous success in fundraising and were featured in Parade magazine. Because
we were so successful in fundraising by the end of the ’90s we bought a
building as our office. And when I returned two and a half years ago, we paid
it off and I felt very strongly about the mission.
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Q: What does the LVA offer,
for those who are unfamiliar?
A: We train volunteers to be
tutors for low-level-literacy adults and those who need to learn English. At
this point in time, a vast majority of students are speakers of other languages
and need to learn to speak English to be fully employed and take a part in the
American dream. Tutors and students meet just about any time of the day or
night — mostly in public spaces like libraries.
Q: What other programs does
your association offer?
A: Part of the curriculum we
provide is health literacy and financial literacy. Students need to learn how
to describe to doctors what hurts. And it’s basic, but it really is critical
for positive health outcomes for their children, and the same with financial
literacy on how to budget, how to save, how to plan. We also have a citizenship
class for people who want to become American citizens. We also teach
job-readiness skills that is integrated into the tutoring, and that was
certainly a big need after they closed all of those casinos. READ MORE @
Newcomers waiting two years
to get a tutor
Leader Post: 3.04.2016 by Pamela Cowan
Nearly 300 refugees and
immigrants are waiting to be matched with tutors at the Regina Public Library so they can begin
literacy lessons and start a new chapter in their lives.
“Since December, we have
matched just over 100 brand-new tutors with learners,” said Alice Samkoe,
literacy programming supervisor with the RPL. “We only have three staff, so it
has been really, really busy and we are still hard at it because we had 300
people come forward to volunteer.”
Volunteers can train to be
tutors through in-class training at Literacy Services or take an online course,
which is being used across North America.
Many volunteers prefer the
online course because it can be done at home and at their convenience, Samkoe
said.
She noted the online course
is available to everyone in the community.
It might be particularly
useful for those who have sponsored Syrian refugees or teachers with immigrant
students, Samkoe said.
“They don’t have to tutor for
us to use the online course,” she said. “We created the course to increase the
capacity of the community to help itself … If you wanted to go on to help your
neighbour, you’re welcome to do that.” READ MORE @
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| @WisLiteracy |
Racine Literacy Council adult
learner receives award
Journal Times: 4.07.2015 by Racine Literacy Council
Literacy tutors, learners and
advocates from around Wisconsin will be honored April 11 during Wisconsin Literacy’s Celebration of
Literacy in Madison.
One of the nine to be honored
at the celebration is Esteban Cruz from Racine. He was nominated by staff from Racine Literacy Council for the Outstanding English
Language Learner of the Year award. Esteban and the eight other winners were
chosen by Wisconsin Literacy Inc., a Madison-based nonprofit that links 77
community-based literacy agencies throughout the state that teach people how to
read or to speak English.
The Outstanding English
Language Learner of the Year Award recognizes the achievements made through
literacy of an adult learner who is a non-native speaker of English. Esteban
was nominated for this award because of his hard work and dedication to his
education at Racine Literacy Council.
He has been a very committed
learner since 2009. For five of those years, he and his tutor Patricia Cook
have worked on building his confidence at work, being more active in his
children’s school, and in being a better advocate for himself and his family.
As a result of their work together, Esteban has received substantial raises at
work due to his improved English skills. His employers seek his input on how to
improve the workplace and they trust him to work independently. READ MORE @
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Literacy Mid-south Holds Flash Mob
Memphis Flyer: 4.07.2016 by
Richard Alley
With hundreds of people gathered on
the Greensward at Overton Park last Saturday, it was difficult to tell how many
were there solely for the fourth-annual Literacy
Mid-South Reading Flash Mob. Yet mixed in with
the Frisbee throwers, the sun worshippers, the pet owners, and protesters was a
healthy gathering of book lovers.
"Originally we came up with
this idea when the flash mobs were really big," Kevin Dean, executive
director of Literacy Mid-South, says. "There was a reading sit-in
elsewhere as a protest, and I thought, 'Well why not just do some shared
reading experience for people?' So we got in touch with the Overton Park
Conservancy and got the permit, and it's just the perfect place for people to
come and read. People are always out here reading anyway, so it's just
capitalizing on what's happening here already."
Literacy Mid-South was set up in the
southwest corner of the lawn with a tent and tables full of books for children
and adults free for the taking. On the northern end, a steel-fence barricade
was erected to keep protesters and zoo parking separated. Uniformed police
stood in clusters on the far side of the fence in that dog-eared, wheel-rutted
corner as one of their helicopters kept watch from the sky. READ MORE @
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