Literacy:
Spanning the U.S.
County faces illiteracy rates higher than
the state average
Visalia
Times Delta: 7.05.2014 by Stephanie Weldy
Tulare County could easily be called the
land of milk and honey.
Literally.
The county touts itself as the No. 1 dairy
county in the state and nation with annual milk production exceeding $1.8
billion in 2012 — when it also pumped out a total of 10,240,000 pounds of
honey.
What this agriculturally rich land isn't so
abundant in is resources that push for educational attainment among residents.
In Tulare County, 32 percent of residents
were illiterate in 2003 when the California average was 23 percent of the
population, according to the U.S. Department of Education. And in 2008, the
County of Tulare put the adult functional illiteracy rate in the county at 41
percent.
"When you talk about why people don't
read or what's going on in Tulare County, it's a lack of educational attainment
and a lack of success," said Tulare County Librarian Jeff Scott. "You go to
school, you go to college and that's your way. But that's so foreign to a lot
of the communities here because they're not finishing school. They're not being
successful in that way. There's a lot of rural poverty. They don't value that.
And a lot of that comes from the generations going back to working in the
fields."
Is this rural landscape that relies heavily
on low-skilled workers responsible for low educational attainment and a high
illiteracy rate in the county?
Few bookstores dot the Tulare County
landscape and no public four-year universities are in its borders.
In 1989, when University of California
regents wanted to add three campuses to the public university system, a Tulare
County University of California Task Force ultimately failed at attracting the
regents to Visalia with a land donation of 2,000 acres.
Scott said the fact of high illiteracy
rates in the county is evidenced in how much the Tulare County
Library — with a total of 15 branches — spends for library services per
person.
While the average county library spends $20
to $25 per person served by the library each year, he said, the Tulare County
system spends only $10 per person.
-"It's a lot of this area — it's like a
third world country," Scott said. READ
MORE !
Congratulations to Pat Tonini!
READ/OC Honoree for the 2014 Spirit of Volunteerism
Award!
READ Writes:
Spring 2014
Pat Tonini has been a
volunteer with READ/Orange County, since 2008. She started out as a
volunteer literacy tutor, helping adult learners reach their reading and
writing goals.
As a tutor, she is patient,
supportive, and encouraging. She shared,
“My first student was American born, middle-aged and very motivated. I saw him really blossom more and more each
year. He was brave enough to go on a
trip with a friend to Las Vegas because he was finally able to read the signs
and know where he was. He had always been too afraid to travel before.”
“My current learner is an
ESL student and it is much more difficult because he doesn’t know our culture
and idioms. He works in a gas station and
once a customer asked him to “break a hundred‟ and he had no idea what that
meant.” Pat has been able to help both
of these learners make great progress towards their learning goals. READ
MORE !
Helping Lumpkin residents learn to read for
40 years
Dahlonega
Nugget: 7.03.2014
Forty years ago the Pioneer Cooperation
Education Service Agency hired a part time instructor to teach adult reading in
Lumpkin County. That simple act led to the formation of Lumpkin Literacy, a non-profit,
all-volunteer organization, that has led Lumpkin’s literacy and adult learning
efforts for four decades.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year,
Lumpkin Literacy (formerly known as the Lumpkin County Literacy Coalition)
operates with one mission in mind—raising literacy rates in our county.
“We estimate that over 3,000 non and
low-readers live here in Lumpkin,” says Donna Gessell, Chair of the Lumpkin
Literacy Board of Directors. “These are people who can’t read job applications
or employee manuals, medical prescriptions, or even the labels on grocery
items. Add in the fact that almost 30 percent of these, who are 25 and older,
do not have a high school diploma or a GED, and you can see the issues facing
our organization and our county.”
To address this Lumpkin Literacy offers
three free programs: The Adult Learning program which teaches adults to learn
to read or improve their reading skills; free ESL (English as a Second
Language) tutoring; and free GED classes, at both the Adult Education Center
and the County Detention Center, as well as financial support to offset the
costs of testing.
Lumpkin Literacy’s work isn’t limited just
to adults. The volunteer group also supports the educational efforts of the
Lumpkin County School System as a grant partner with the 21st Century (After
School Program) Community Learning Center. In addition, each spring they team up
with Lumpkin County High School’s Key Club to give each 3rd grader a Webster
Dictionary and each 8th grader a thesaurus. “For some children, that dictionary
or thesaurus may be the only book in their home,” says Gessell. READ
MORE !
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