Literacy – Spanning the US :: San Angelo TX :: Solano County CA :: Dayton OH

Lee Middle School Students Help Raise Literacy Awareness

Concho Valley: 8.16.2016 by Daija Barrett

Emily Houston and Frankie Coleman are just 11 years-old, but the Lee Middle School students are on a mission to raise awareness about the number of people in the Concho Valley who don't know how to read or write.

"We learned lots of people cannot read," says Emily Houston.

The girls have teamed with the Adult Literacy Council of the Concho Valley to show council members what they're doing at Tuesday's meeting.

"They have been doing this for several months. I mean this is not a new thing," says the Executive Director of the Adult Literacy Council, Marilynn Golightly.

It was group project from the Carol Ann Bonds Symposium that led Emily and Frankie to research the declining literacy rate not only here -- but across the country. They discovered what they describe as shocking statistics on how many people in the United States and in their community who can't read or write.

"Some people just don't read because they don't like it, instead of just not knowing how to read, so that's part of the problem," says Frankie Coleman.

"It makes me kind of sad because I love to read and so they're missing out," says Houston.

According to the Literacy Council, 45% of the adult population, have limited reading and writing skills.  VIDEO

Solano Library’s Families For Literacy Program places books in the home

The Reporter: 8.20.2016 by Melissa Murphy

Learning to read and write in English just made sense to Veronica Lopez.

A native of El Salvador, Lopez was a young mother and only spoke Spanish, but she wanted more for her children and herself.

“My children are very important to me,” she said speaking in English with a thick, but clear accent, sitting in the Vacaville Public Library — Cultural Center. “I try to teach them different things. If I don’t speak or read English, how will I teach my children?”

Lopez took the initiative to make a change.

After her family moved to Vacaville, she first called the Vacaville Unified School District looking for adult English classes and they pointed her to the public library.

Lopez, then a mother of one, a daughter named Aimee Escobar, eagerly joined the Families For Literacy program offered through Solano County Library Literacy Services. The program is for reading/writing learners in the Adult Literacy Program who also have a child at home that is younger that 5 years old and not attending school. Each month the program provides a quality children’s book to the FFL tutors to use with the adult learners in their tutoring sessions. Afterwards, the learners get to keep the book and are encouraged to read the book to their child at home.

“It goes along with the philosophy that the parent is a child’s first teacher,” said Lorene Hamasaki, an assistant with the library’s Literacy Program. “What better time to reach the whole family than through the adult? ... The program is getting books into the home.”  READ MORE @

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“The sisters of the Precious Blood have a large number in retirement,” said Celine O’Neill, current executive director of the Brunner Literacy Center. “They were looking for a way to make a contribution to their community and most being retired school teachers and administrators, it seemed a perfect fit.”  READ MORE @