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Literacy: Spanning North America

@READSanDiego

READ/San Diego’s 30 Year Legacy of Providing Literacy Services

WS Radio: 3.12.2019

All segments of this broadcast were dedicated to an interview with the San Diego Public Library's literacy program administrator, Val Hardie, and literacy student, Amelia Sandoval. Val shared her background and perspective on over 30 years of providing literacy services for the City of San Diego, the San Diego Public Library, and READ/ San Diego.  LISTEN 57:50

Sweet Home 

Library

Adult Literacy Program Coming To The Mid-valley

Albany Democrat-Herald: 9.06.2019 by Caitlyn M May

Imagine living in poverty, said Amanda Makepeace, the adult literacy program coordinator for a new program coming to the mid-valley.

Imagine moving from school to school to school as a child, leaving a classroom just as a teacher introduces the letter "A" only to arrive in a new classroom that has already begun learning the letter "C." Letter after letter, word after word and eventually book after book until ultimately, you have trouble reading beyond an elementary school level.

“It happens,” Makepeace said. “Migrant families or transient families; the kids have their early education disrupted so often and the last thing they want to do when they get to their new school is raise their hand and say, ‘I need help with my reading.’”

Those children become adults and, as of recently, Makepeace said they had few options to improve their literacy skills. But come November, a new program will be aimed at providing free help.

“If they don’t have a job, maybe they get a job. If they have a job, maybe they get more responsibility and then more pay,” Makepeace said. “It could be a job training program or they could get their associates degree. The goal is to make them self-sufficient.”

The adult literacy program is funded by the Linn Libraries Consortium, the State Library of Oregon and Linn-Benton Community College.  READ MORE >>

Fort  St John 

Litreracy

The Bonds Of Literacy

Alaska Highway News: 9.06.2019 by Charo Lloret, Kalpana Loganathan

September is Literacy Month, so we are having a little chat with Jessica Kalman, executive director, and Taylor Mills, program co-ordinator, at the Fort St. John Literacy Society.

Charo: "Being illiterate is like being inside of one of those glass water balls: You can see the world around you but you cannot connect at so many important levels. If you are a newcomer and you don’t speak the language of the place you live in, the isolation becomes even more daunting. You cannot communicate with your doctor, with your children’s teachers."

Jessica: "Indeed. We are very conscious about the disadvantages experienced by people with disabilities, but perhaps not so many people realize how incapacitating illiteracy can be, how isolating, not only with the basic services, but also with society in general. And there are currently approximately 700,000 British Columbians that have significant challenges with literacy — 45% of British Columbians aged 16 to 65 may have difficulty understanding newspapers, following instruction manuals, reading health information and other daily living tasks. 52% of British Columbians aged 16 to 65 may have difficulty calculating interest on a car loan, using information on a graph, calculating medicine dosage and other daily living tasks."  READ MORE  >>

Getting The Word Out On Literacy

NOW: 9.07.2019 by Neil Price

Low-level literacy can become a trap, leading to increased poverty and unemployment.

Most people take the skills of reading and writing (and numeracy) for granted.

We think of them as something that’s naturally acquired in the primary years and deepened and refined as we become adults.

But if there is one issue that often gets overlooked as being critical to achieving social justice and improved health outcomes, it’s literacy.

I was no different.

I certainly didn’t conceive of the importance of adult literacy until after I realized the goal of becoming a high school teacher wasn’t to be.

@ParkdaleRead   @MTMLTorontoYork   @APNLC

As a literacy worker at Parkdale Project Read, I learned that despite our large public education systems, literacy rates for close to 42 per cent of adult Ontarians are currently below where they need to be – thereby impeding the social determinants of health such as well-paying jobs and sustained involvement in our political system.

For over 25 years, adult literacy programs under the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy (MTML) umbrella have helped to address this issue. It’s not glamorous or headline-grabbing work, but the movement’s programs give people a chance to empower themselves and live healthier and more meaningful lives.

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For Jessa Reitsma, a community literacy worker with Alexandra Park Neighbourhood Learning Centre, literacy work is not just about enabling adults to pursue their own learning. It's also about helping them to figure out what to do next in their lives.  READ MORE >>