Literacy:
Spanning the U.S.
Volunteers provide a
second chance for learning at library literacy program
Napa
County Register: 5.25.2015 by Gene Piscia
The California Library Literacy Program was
created 30 years ago. It was recognized that community libraries, where people
go to read and access information, would make ideal locations for those who
wanted to improve their reading, writing and speaking skills, and libraries
then became the community centers for literacy programs.
From my personal
experience of tutoring for several years, I have found tutoring to be an
excellent way of providing help to people who are trying hard to better their
lives as well as the lives of their families. It has been the most rewarding
volunteer experience that I have been involved with in Napa.
My learner is a wife
and mother of three children who gets up at 4 a.m. during the weekdays and is
off to work before 5 a.m. She cooks for her family, keeps house and transports
her children to soccer games and a variety of other activities, in addition to
working to improve her English skills.
Her day doesn’t end
until after 9 each night. She also has a challenging job in food service, where
she has recently been promoted to an assistant manager.
Like my learner, there
are a variety of reasons why people want to enroll in a literacy program:
better employment opportunities, job promotions, life changes, the need to
become more independent, and the desire of parents wanting to communicate more
effectively with their child’s teacher.
According to Robin
Rafael, the literacy supervisor for the Napa County Library,
“literacy services provides a second chance for adult learners to fill in the
missing links in their lives and learn to read and write. Library Literacy
Services is a community project with many volunteers who give their heart and
time to the process of helping a fellow human being.” READ
MORE !
Peru Woman Who Learned
English Through IECC Gets Award
Fairfield
Current: 5.25.2015 by Penny Shreve
Now, she has been
accepted to the University of Illinois in Chicago and plans to transfer
there—or to another university—this fall to major in Chemical Engineering. And
on May 13th, she was one of ten students given the Spotlight
on Achievement Award at a ceremony in Springfield.
“We are so proud of
her,” said Linda Sargent, coordinator of Literacy Development at Frontier
College for the entire Illinois Eastern Community Colleges (IECC) District.
“When she came to us four years ago, she could barely speak English. She has
dedicated herself to school, and she has really done well.”
Sargent, who screens
students to evaluate reading levels, then matches them with a volunteer tutor, nominated
Lopez for the Spotlight on Achievement Award, presented by Secretary of State
and State
Librarian Jesse White and the Illinois Press Association.
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Lopez began meeting
twice a week with a tutor at the Flora
Public Library. They reviewed basic greetings,
money, and numbers. As she progressed, Lopez and her second tutor began working
on grammar. “I moved on to writing sentences,” she said. “My conversations were
getting better, and my writing improved.”
READ
MORE !
Adult Literacy in Placer
County
Rocklin
and Roseville Today: 5.26.2015 by Randi Swisley
League of Women Voters, Op-ed
A local business owner
in her mid-30's recently contacted the Placer
Adult Literacy Service (PALS) requesting tutoring. She did not know how to read and wanted to
help her son with his homework.
A young man in our
county jail is also learning how to read from PALS tutors. When he came to jail, he lost his college
athletic scholarship, not because he cannot read, but because he was arrested.
These two people are
among the 10% of adults in Placer County who cannot read. Across California, one in four adults is
illiterate.
Many people who are
unable to read are smarter than average, but uneducated. In fact, many develop strong coping skills to
compensate for not being able to read basic survival information like product
directions, road signs, the news or a job application.
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General guidelines in
our country suggest that children should have 1000 stories read to them from
start to finish before they begin kindergarten.
Reading one story every day for 3 years, for example, adds up to more
than 1000. Parents who cannot read to
their children start or continue the multi-generational cycle of not being able
to read and passing along the burdens that come with that cycle. READ
MORE !
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