Literacy:
Spanning the U.S.
Naturalization
ceremony set for Friday
The
Mid-Valley will be adding 50 United States citizens to its population during
the Northern California regional naturalization ceremony on Friday in Yuba
City, according to officials.
People
from five counties will be part of the fifth Yuba City ceremony.
Representatives
from the U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services Department of Homeland Security
will be officiating the 10 a.m. event at the Veterans Building.
Immediately
following the ceremony will be a community celebration.
"It
grew out of the idea that somebody needed to recognize our new citizens,"
said Mary Alice Shumate, director of the Sutter
County Library Literacy program and citizenship coordinator.
In
2006, Shumate began honoring those who went through the county's literacy
program and earned their citizenship.
She
cited Andre Tureene, a former literacy program tutor, as the one who pushed for
the ceremony.
Tureene,
who immigrated to the U.S. at age 10 from France, was in the Air Force and has
since moved away.
"There
are so many people who have helped with citizenship — in and out of the
community," Shumate said.
Tjinder
Kaur of Yuba City is a Sutter County Library assistant who went through the
program and earned her citizenship in 2003.
READ
MORE !
Statewide merger of literacy groups aims to
increase access to reading, educational programs
NJ.com:
6.30.2014 by Martin Griff, The Times
With more and more illiterate adults asking
for help, literacy programs across the state have come to a simple conclusion:
They can’t do it alone.
In the hopes of freeing up resources to
focus on literacy education, eight local and statewide nonprofit groups —
including Literacy Volunteers of
Mercer County — have merged into Literacy
New Jersey, one organization that will offer programs for illiterate and
non-English speaking adults throughout the state.
In 2012-13, the groups provided nearly
8,000 students with free services, but business operations often require just
as much attention as classroom activity, Literacy New Jersey CEO Elizabeth
Gloeggler said last week.
“We can do things better, more effectively
and more efficiently by joining forces,” Gloeggler said. “Our whole idea was to
bring together all of our strengths and tackle this problem together.”
Instead of each group devoting time and
energy to behind-the-scenes operations — such as serving on boards, filling out
IRS forms and conducting audits — the whole business side of the operation will
be based out of Literacy New Jersey’s headquarters in Roselle. READ
MORE !
Anne Arundel organization tackles adult
literacy
Deborah Bias began taking adult literacy
classes last August, and since then the Annapolis resident has vaulted from a
kindergarten reading level to third grade, picking up about a thousand words
along the way.
Her instruction comes courtesy of an
individualized tutoring program from the Anne
Arundel County Literacy Council, a nonprofit that has offered one-on-one
coaching in reading, writing and spelling since 1977.
Bias' instruction often involves words on
flashcards that she spreads out over a table, glimpses, memorizes, then writes
out.
Sometimes, she says, she'll become so
immersed in learning new words that if her phone rings, the caller is sure to
hear "Leave a message."
"I have to focus on the one word for a
while, and then I will know the word," said Bias, 52, who said she no
longer needs help reading food labels or street signs.
She said she hopes someday to teach others
to read.
"When I told my family I was going to
read and write, they were happy," Bias said. "You're not supposed to
give up. You have to focus on what you want to do."
Bias is among scores of Anne Arundel
residents who take advantage of free instruction from the Annapolis-based
literacy group. The organization says its clients come from all backgrounds,
yet most are between the ages of 18 and 55 and read at a fifth-grade level or
lower. Some students have learning disorders such as dyslexia, while others
have endured hardships that curtailed education opportunities. READ
MORE !
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