Literacy – Spanning the US :: Illinois :: Attleboro MA :: Brownsville TX :: Charlottesville/Albemarle VA

Literacy: Spanning the U.S.     

Literacy Effort

Jesse White Awards More Than $4.7 Million in Adult Literacy Grants

cyberdriveillionois: 8.09.2018

Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White awarded over $4.7 million in Adult Literacy Grants to develop and enhance students’ reading, math, writing and English language skills.

“An estimated 2.1 million Illinois residents need adult literacy and/or English language instruction,” said White. “I am pleased to provide 76 local literacy providers with funding that will allow adult students to achieve their utmost potential in the upcoming year. I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that all Illinoisans have access to quality literacy programs.”

Nearly 13,500 students will be served by adult literacy programs around the state. More than 6,200 volunteer tutors will provide instruction and guidance for students. Adult literacy projects help Illinois adults who read below the ninth-grade level or speak English at a beginner level improve their reading, writing, math or use of English as a new language.

The Adult Literacy Program — administered by the Secretary of State’s Illinois State Library Literacy Office — awards grants in three categories:

• Adult Volunteer Literacy Grants provide training for volunteers who tutor those ages 17 and older in basic reading, math, writing or language skills.

• Penny Severns Family Literacy Grants provide educational services to parents and children in an effort to enhance basic reading, math, writing or language skills.

• The Workplace Skills Enhancement Project provides onsite instructional services to employees of participating Illinois businesses, enabling them to enhance their basic reading, writing or language skills and increase their opportunity for career advancement.  READ MORE >>

Literacy Center

Attleboro

Attleboro's Literacy Center honors new grads, citizens

Sun Chronicle: 8.09.2018 by Rick Foster

For some people, neither education nor life seems destined to follow a predictable pattern.

Some spend years completing a high school diploma denied them by illness or life’s circumstances. Others find themselves having to adapt in a new land where they understand neither the language nor privilege of citizenship.

On Thursday The Literacy Center honored dozens of its students who overcame chance or adversity to achieve their high school equivalency, qualify for American citizenship or master English as a second language.

At a graduation ceremony attended by state and local dignitaries at Wamsutta Middle School, 16 adult students were honored as recipients of high school equivalency certificates and 15 others were recognized as new American citizens after having studied as part of Literacy Center programs.

Three of the high school equivalency recipients and four new citizens were able to attend the ceremony in person Thursday.  READ MORE >>

Brownsville

Literacy

Health fair arms parents, students with resources

Brownsville Herald: 8.09.2018 by Nadia Tamez-Robledo

It was a packed house at the Brownsville Literacy Center’s first Back-to-School Health Fair, which organizers said aimed not only to provide supplies but to inform the group’s clients about low-cost health and education services available in the community.

Interim Director Emily Younger estimated more than 200 people attended the event, where participants visited informational booths for a chance to enter a raffle that included school supplies and bicycles. Many of the adults in Brownsville Literacy Center classes are learning English, she said, and language can present a barrier for them when it comes to finding health services.

“We’re all about empowering the adults, educating them,” Younger said. “We can get people in the door, and if we can get (school supplies) donations, any little bit helps with back to school.”

Literacy isn’t just about reading and writing, she said. Financial and nutritional literacy also are important, Younger added, and that’s why the center invited financial and health organizations as well.  READ MORE >>

@LVCA_Wordplay

Charlottesville Woman Learns to Read with Help from JAUNT, Literacy Volunteers

NBC29: 8.14.2018 edited by Emmy Freedman

Thanks to the help of JAUNT and the Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle, one 70-year-old Charlottesville woman has learned to read.

Jaunt provided Joyce Peck with free transportation to and from reading lessons with the literacy volunteers.

On Tuesday, August 14, she and a group of others in the literacy volunteers program celebrated their newly acquired reading skills by reading short stories they wrote at a potluck dinner with family and friends.

“I love to read now, which I wish I’d done when my mom and my dad were still here,” Peck said.  READ MORE >>