Literacy: Spanning the U.S.
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Literacy council to host folk-concert fundraiser
Arkansas Online: 9.18.2016 by Jillian McGehee
More than 10,000 people in Garland County are
functionally illiterate, meaning they can not read at a fifth-grade level, said
Laura Lee Williard, executive director of the Literacy Council
of Garland County.
The council working to improve literacy statistics
in the county. The first step, Williard said, is awareness.
After a period of inactivity, the council has new
leaders including Williard, who joined the board last year in June. Now that
things are running more smoothly, we are asking the community to get involved,
she said.
The first fundraiser the council has sponsored in
a long time is titled Literacy, Libations & Lyrics and will be at 6 p.m.
Thursday at Whittington Place, 301 Whittington Ave. in Hot Springs.
“It’s more like a ‘friendraiser’ as we want to
spread more awareness about what we do and our important role in Garland
County,” Williard said.
The Literacy Council of Garland County tutoring
services are confidential and free and include one-on-one tutoring as well as
online resources and distance-learning programs, Williard said.
The organization also serves those who are
learning English as a second language. Other initiatives include the PALS
Program (Parents Affect Literacy Skills), a two-hour workshop designed to
educate parents on how literacy skills are developed and what they can do
outside the school day to help their children build literacy skills.
Michael Garstecki, president of the Literacy
Council of Garland County’s Board of Directors, said the biggest hurdle the
organization faces is that many people don’t know they exist. READ MORE @
After 30 years, Sonoma County Library’s adult
literacy program marks milestone
Press Democrat: 9.18.2016 by Christi Warren
Jeffrey George was 7 and a middle child among 11
siblings when his mother abandoned their family in their home city Port of
Spain, capital of the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
His father was imprisoned two years later. When he
was 12, with only his grandmother and older siblings left for support, he
dropped out of school and “hustled,” catching fish, running a fruit stand and
dancing on the streets for change.
He left his English- and creole-speaking country
at 18 and worked as a musician, traveling around the world. But he couldn’t
read or write.
In restaurants, he’d wait for friends to order and
follow their lead, unable to make sense of the words on a menu. When asking for
directions, he would use landmarks and businesses to navigate instead of street
signs.
“I was ashamed,” he said.
For 30 years, a popular program run through the Sonoma County Library has been working to
bridge the literacy gap for adults who have struggled to get by without a basic
knowledge of how to write and read English. George entered the program two
years ago.
In a world evermore reliant on instant
communication over a wide array of digital platforms, literacy remains one of
the key determining factors of economic wellbeing, both on a individual and
national scale, studies show.
The nearly 20 percent of Americans who fall below
basic levels of reading comprehension are more at risk of “academic failure and
delinquency, violence, and crime,” according to the Department of Justice. READ MORE @
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Brunswick County inmates get literacy tutors
Star News Online: 9.18.2016
The Brunswick County Literacy
Council, a nonprofit that works to improve lives by providing
literacy skills for adults, is partnering with the Brunswick County Sheriff's
Office to help inmates prepare for their GED tests.
Literacy statistics indicate that one in 4.5
adults in North Carolina lacks the literacy to write a job application or read
a book to a child. Illiteracy can lead insecurity and a lack of success in all
arenas of adulthood, including parenting, education and employment.
Four years ago, the BCLC approached the Brunswick
County Sheriff’s Office about a proposal to extend its services, specifically
GED (General Education Development) tutoring, to county inmates, since a GED
testing program can often serve as a positive step for inmates.
Among state prison inmates, data suggests that
two-thirds have not complete high school. With a prison record and no diploma,
few potential jobs are available for them upon release. After careful
consideration, Sheriff John Ingram and his team agreed that the in-jail GED
preparatory program could serve as a valuable way to restore inmates to be
productive citizens.
Brunswick Literacy launched its inmate GED
tutoring in June 2012 to help prepare men and women to successfully pass the
GED exam. READ MORE @
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