Literacy – Spanning the US :: Coffee Co TN :: Williamsburg VA :: Monongalia & Preston Co's WV

Literacy: Spanning the U.S.     

The Literacy Council

Literacy Council celebrates 30 years

Tullahoma News: 10.14.2018 by Faith Few

The Literacy Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes adult basic education, celebrates its 30th birthday this month. Founded in 1988, it was one of the first nonprofit organizations in Coffee County.

“The goal of the Literacy Council is simple,” said Dot Watson, a former president of the council. “The goal is to support and promote adult basic education in Coffee County. We are able to do this with the help of our many volunteers and books donated to our store. Since we are a group that promotes literacy, we wanted our fundraising efforts to reflect that.”

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In addition to helping with funds for the HiSET, the Literacy Council supplies its education centers in Coffee County with phone and Wi-Fi services, computers, teaching materials and supplemental salaries for teachers.

The Literacy Council has also helped to get classes started in the Coffee County Jail to help inmates get jobs once they are released.  READ MORE >>

@Literacy_4_Life

October is Health Literacy Month!

Williamsburg CC: 10.15.2018

Literacy is a stronger predictor of a person’s health than income, employment status, education level, or race or ethnicity. An estimated thirty-five percent of all adults in the U.S. do not have the ability to understand basic health information and services to make appropriate decisions. People with low health literacy are more likely to skip important preventative measures and to enter the health care system when they’re sicker. They’re more likely to have chronic conditions and less likely to manage them effectively. They are significantly more likely to report their health as poor.

Low health literacy doesn’t just affect patients. It strains the health care system itself, resulting in preventable hospital visits and admissions, longer stays, higher readmission rates, and extra tests, procedures and prescriptions. The estimated health costs of low literacy in the United States are $106 billion to $236 billion. For businesses, improved health literacy of employees can increase productivity and reduce sick leave.

Through a grant from the Williamsburg Health Foundation, Literacy for Life designed the innovative HEAL Program to address the issue of low health literacy, drawing on its expertise as a premier adult literacy organization with a 43-year track record. The HEAL Program addresses the problem of low health literacy with a two-pronged approach: HEAL classes help people increase their knowledge of current health care topics, medical terminology, and standard processes and practices. HEAL also ensures that medical professionals can recognize patients with low literacy and low health literacy and know how to take steps to communicate with them more effectively.  READ MORE >>

Literacy program in Mon and Preston counties shares need-to-read

The Dominion Post: 10.18.2018 by William Dean

@RubyReadWV

Signs around WVU’s Woodburn Circle alerted people to statistics about literacy during Literacy Volunteers of Monongalia & Preston Counties Need-to-Read Read-In, Thursday.

The goal of the event was to promote awareness of LVMPC’s programs, volunteer Joe Wakim said.

“Just bring a book and read,” Jackson Jacobs said.

LVMPC works with a wide range of people from native West Virginians who slipped through the cracks and struggle with adult illiteracy to international students at WVU who want to work on improving their English, Jacobs said.

Wakim said the non-profit has worked with people from across the globe, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, France, Syria.  READ MORE >>

Three Education Pathways To Good Jobs: High School, Middle Skills, And Bachelor's Degree via Georgetown Univ

Three Education
Pathways To Good Jobs

Three Education Pathways To Good Jobs: High School, Middle Skills, And Bachelor's Degree

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce: 2018

by Anthony P. Carnevale, Jeff Strohl, Neil Ridley, and Artem Gulish

The economy that once provided good jobs for young workers with a high school education or less now favors workers with at least some education and training beyond high school. Whereas two out of three entry-level jobs in the industrial economy demanded a high school diploma or less, now two out of three jobs demand at least some education or training beyond high school. While automation, globalization, and upskilling have prompted this massive economic restructuring, there are still three pathways to good jobs.

What is a Good Job?

We define a good job as one that pays at least $35,000 for workers 25-44 and at least $45,000 for workers 45-64. These jobs:

➤pay median earnings of $56,000 for workers with less than a BA

➤pay median earnings of $65,000 when including workers with a BA or higher

High School

The future of the high school economy remains uncertain, but it continues to provide good jobs. In 1991, there were 14.7 million good jobs for workers with no more than high school diploma, but that number has declined to 12.9 million by 2016. About 27 percent (2.9 million) of young workers ages 25-34 with no more than a high school diploma have a good job, which is down only slightly from 29 percent in 1991. Overall, the high school pathway provides 20 percent of all good jobs. The good job opportunities it provides are primarily for men.

The high school pathway includes many workers who started in lower-paying jobs and worked their way up to managers, supervisors, and other senior positions across a variety of fields, such as construction, manufacturing, retail, food services, and office support, among others. It also includes truck drivers, carpenters, drillers, oil and gas equipment operators, construction equipment operators, and other industrial machinery operators.

Middle Skills

The middle-skills pathway is comprised of workers with more education than a high school diploma, but less than a BA including, certificates, certifications, licenses, associate’s degrees, and some college coursework. This pathway is in the midst of major transformation from traditional blue-collar jobs to more skilled technical jobs across skilled-services and blue-collar industries. In contrast to high school jobs, this pathway continues to grow. Workers with middle skills have 16 million good jobs, or 24 percent of all good jobs.

The middle-skills pathway includes those in traditional middle skills jobs, such as firefighters, law-enforcement officers, electricians, mechanics, installers, repairers, technicians of industrial equipment, and highway maintenance workers; it also includes those in skilled and technical jobs, such as healthcare technologists and technicians, computer control programmers and operators, surveying and mapping technicians, and information and record clerks.

Bachelor's Degree

The bachelor’s degree (BA) has become the premier pathway to economic opportunity. The BA now accounts for 56 percent of all good jobs, due to greater demand for workers with at least a four-year college education. Nearly three out of four BA jobs (74%) are good jobs.

This pathway includes a majority of professional and technical jobs, including those held by doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, computer programmers, journalists, architects, and managers, among many others.

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In the post-World War II period, workers with a high school diploma or less were able to attain jobs with middle-class wages in American industry. Good jobs1 were available in manufacturing and other blue-collar industries that employed large numbers of high school educated workers. But as automation, globalization, and related phenomena have led to major structural changes in the American economy, economic opportunity has shifted toward more educated workers with higher skill levels. Whereas two out of three entry-level jobs in the industrial economy demanded a high school diploma or less, now two out of three jobs demand at least some education or training beyond high school.

READ MORE >>

Literacy Reports & Statistics

Workplace

2018: Three Education Pathways To Good Jobs, Georgetown

2018: A Stronger Nation: Learning beyond high school builds American talent, Lumina

2017: UpSkilling Playbook for Employers, Aspen Institute

2015: Skills Gap Report, NAM-MI

2008: Reach Higher America: Overcoming Crisis in the U.S. Workforce, NCAL

2007: America’s Perfect Storm, ETS

2007: Can California Import Enough College Grad's. Meet Workforce Needs?, PPIC

2007: Mounting Pressures: Workforce . . . Adult Ed, NCAL

National Literacy & Library Events :: November 2018

National Literacy & Library Events :: November 2018

Literacy & Library Events & Conferences

Events-National & International Events

Events-International: Language Magazine

National Family Literacy Month

National Novel Writing Month

National Picture Book Month

Nov. 01     Author's Day

Nov. 01     National Family Literacy Day

Nov. 02     Colorado Health Literacy Coalition Conference Aurora CO

Nov. 02     Read. Write. Act. Virtual Conference      

Nov. 02     Young Adult Services Symposium Salt Lake City UT

Nov. 03     Jump$tart National Educator Conf Cleveland OH

Nov. 04     International Games Week

Nov. 05     Global Read Aloud Your choice!

Nov. 06     LERN Conference Savannah GA

Nov. 07     LibraryCon Cyber Space 11a

Nov. 08     ALER Conference Louisville KY

Nov. 09     YallFest Charleston SC

Nov. 11     Children’s Illustration Celebration R. Michelson Galleries MA

Nov. 11     Norton Juster Award Literacy R. Michelson Galleries MA 4p

Nov. 12     American Education Week

Nov. 12     Conference on Afterschool and Summer Learning Kansas City MO

Nov. 12     Global Education Conference Cyber Space

Nov. 13     CAEL Council for Adult & Experiential Learning Conf Cleveland OH

Nov. 14     American Association of School Librarians Conf  Louisville KY

Nov. 14     Library Marketing and Communications Conference St Louis MO

Nov. 14     NAEYC Conference Washington DC

Nov. 15     National Writing Project Conference Houston TX

Nov. 16     ACTFL Convention New Orleans LA

Nov. 17     Tellabration (Sat before Thanksgiving) Have the Talk of a Lifetime

Nov. 18     National Council of Teachers of English Houston TX

Nov. 19     World Nursery Rhyme Week UK

Nov. 22     The Great Listen 2018

Nov. 28     LRA National Reading Conference Indian Wells CA

Nov. 28     TASHl Conference Portland OR

State Library Associations :: Conferences

African American Book Events

Book Fairs by State Library of Congress

Children’s Book Council Kid Lit Events

College Children’s & Young Adult Literature Conferences Festivals

Everfest Book Festival Calendar

ILA :: Literacy Calendar Worldwide

Storytelling Events

US Book Festivals

Literacy – Spanning North America :: Abington PA :: NY NY :: Santa Maria/Lompoc CA :: Fort St John BC

Literacy: Spanning North America    

@AbingtonLibrary

Nation needs to support critical literacy programs

Times Chronicle: 10.10.2018 by Linda George

“Speak English!” a fellow customer implored my student, a woman from Costa Rica, while she conversed with her sister in a supermarket line. This scene, epitomizing the “you don’t belong in America” sentiment, typifies the rising pressure on immigrants to communicate in English — all while funding for programs that teach English disappears.

Three years ago, I began volunteering at the Adult Literacy Program at the Abington Free Library (ALPAFL). The program aims to help adults — some from all over the world — improve their literacy and academic skills so they can provide for their families and become fully integrated into our community. My director paired me with a delightful, ambitious middle-aged woman with a sixth-grade education who mostly spoke Spanish.

I also teach an English as a Second Language (ESL) class at ALPAFL, where attendees improve their English while learning about U.S. culture. A sampling of students includes a young mother from South Korea, who wants to read to her children; a grandmother from India, who wants to fill out medical forms without relying on her physician son; and a Romanian woman with a huge smile, who simply wants to communicate with the people she meets every day, such as her mail carrier, dog’s veterinarian and neighbors.

As students in my ESL class introduce themselves to each other, I roll out a worn world map on a broken easel to show them the location of their country of origin. From the front of our tiny classroom in the library’s basement, I note their rapt attention as they take notes and eagerly raise hands to ask questions — qualities most teachers would envy in any classroom. Despite its huge success, this program’s minimal public funding for a part-time director, books and supplies will soon run dry.  READ MORE >>

@MannyCantorNYC

Older New Yorkers Have Huge and Growing Need for English Classes

City Limits: 10.10.2018 by Dorian Block

Yumei Wang, 79, has a modest dream. She would, for the first time in her adult life, like to open her mail and understand what the words on the paper mean.

Wang came to New York from China when she was 18 years old and worked as a nanny for many years. She relied on her husband’s English, and then later her son’s, otherwise staying in Chinatown herself. Wang’s son is now grown and lives independently, and her husband died last year. On top of Wang’s grief are piles of worry about accomplishing daily tasks like writing her rent check and paying her cable bill without understanding them or knowing how to write in English.

Similarly, Eliena Wong, 72, has a basic hope. Wong wants to be able to call the police or to ask for help in an emergency.

“I go outside and take the subway. I feel so nervous,” Wong says. “If I make a mistake and something broken (in the subway), I need to get home. If something is wrong, how can I call someone to help me? I do not understand.”

There are 1.6 million people over age 60 in New York City, which is about 19 percent of the city’s overall population (or the size of the entire population of Philadelphia). Demographers expect that New York’s population 60+ will have increased by almost 50 percent between 2000 to 2040.

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Back at the Manny Cantor Center, on a recent Thursday, 20 people come from all boroughs of the city traveling by subway and bus, to one of the few places that has an evidence-based intensive English class (two three-hour sessions a week) with all older students. Many of the students have low levels of literacy in any language and never went to high school in their home countries.  READ MORE >>

Central Coast

Literacy Council

Central Coast Literacy Council Spelling Bee to raise money for literacy programs

Lompoc Record: 10.12.2018 by Razi Syed

The Central Coast Literacy Council is hoping community members will put their spelling skills to the test during the 25th annual Adult Spelling Bee, which aims to raise community awareness about literacy issues in Santa Barbara County.

In 2017-18, the center served 133 people in Santa Maria and 59 in Lompoc. “We make it fun while we’re raising money for our organization,” said Laura Arteaga, executive director of the Central Coast Literacy Council.

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One of the main purposes of the Spelling Bee is to raise community awareness of the literacy need that exists in the county, Arteaga said, adding that based on our last census, there are 76,000 people in Santa Barbara County who are functionally illiterate, with around half of those residing in the northern part of the county. Functional illiteracy refers to reading and writing skills that are below the proficiency needed to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level.

Arteaga said one in four children in the United States grows up to be functionally illiterate. “We have adults going through the educational system and either they had an unidentified disability or, perhaps, an identified disability and just went through the system without learning how to read.”  READ MORE  >>

Fort St John

Literacy

Adult learners in Fort St. John get literacy skills

News: 10.12.2018

Literacy programs in Fort St. John are giving adult learners the opportunity to connect with their community, calculate interest on a car loan, read labels and fill out forms.

“Developing stronger reading, writing, math or computer skills can help people transform their lives and explore the possibility of higher education,” said Melanie Mark, Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training, who visited the Fort St. John Literacy Society. “Investing in literacy skills in communities like Fort St. John and throughout the province unlocks the potential in people's lives and shows them a whole new world of possibilities.”

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“The programs we offer to people respond directly to their learning needs so they can move forward, unlock their potential and contribute to our community,” said Jessica Kalman, executive director and literacy outreach co-ordinator with the Fort St. John Literacy Society. “It’s exciting to see literacy in our community improve and people achieve their goals, whether it’s getting a driver’s licence, writing an exam or just building up their confidence.”

It is estimated more than 700,000 people in B.C. have significant challenges with literacy.  READ MORE  >>

Incarcerated Pennsylvanians Now Have To Pay $150 To Read via Washington Post

Incarcerated Pennsylvanians Now Have To Pay $150 To Read.

Book ’Em

We Should All Be Outraged.

Washington Post: 10.11.2018 by Jodi Lincoln

Jodi Lincoln is co-chair of Book ’Em, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization that sends free reading material to incarcerated people and prison libraries.

Every year, thousands of people in Pennsylvania prisons write directly to nonprofit organizations such as the one I co-chair with a request for reading material, which we then send to them at no cost. This free access to books has dramatically improved the lives of incarcerated individuals, offering immense emotional and mental relief as well as a key source of rehabilitation.

But as of last month, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) has decided to make such rehabilitation much harder. Going forward, books and publications, including legal primers and prison newsletters, cannot be sent directly to incarcerated Pennsylvanians. Instead, if they want access to a book, they must first come up with $147 to purchase a tablet and then pay a private company for electronic versions of their reading material — but only if it’s available among the 8,500 titles offered to them through this new e-book system.

In case you forgot: Incarcerated people are paid less than $1 per hour, and the criminal-justice system disproportionately locks up low-income individuals. Adding insult to injury, most of the e-books available to them for purchase would be available free from Project Gutenberg. And nonpublic domain books in Pennsylvania’s e-book system are more expensive than on other e-book markets.

This policy, part of a larger trend of censorship in state prisons around the country, should alarm everyone.  READ MORE >>

Vote for Your Favorite ProLiteracy Adult Literacy Program

VOTE

ProLiteracy Launches Global Literacy Hero Contest to Raise Awareness of Adult Literacy

ProLiteracy: 10.24.2018

In an effort to help the 36 million low-literate adults in the U.S., ProLiteracy, the leader in adult literacy content development, programs, and advocacy for more than 60 years, is pleased to announce the launch of the ProLiteracy Hero Contest. ProLiteracy launched the contest to raise awareness of the adult literacy crisis, and to recognize the adult education and literacy heroes worldwide!

A panel of ProLiteracy judges chose the top 10 national finalists from hundreds of stories and submissions that were sent in from around the world. The video and story submissions are posted to the ProLiteracy website and have been opened up to a public vote at www.proliteracy.org. Each week, the finalists will be narrowed down until the first-, second-, and third-place winners are selected on November 16

“The local literacy organizations are the heroes who make adult learners’ dreams come true,” said Kevin Morgan, President and CEO of ProLiteracy. “Choosing the top ten finalists out of so many worthwhile organizations was very difficult. They all deserve to be recognized.”

The top ten adult literacy organization finalists are:

COFFEE in Louisville, Kentucky
The English as a Second Language (ESL) In-Home Program of Northern Nevada
IMANI HOUSE (IHI) in Brooklyn, NY, and in Liberia, West Africa.
LearningQuest – Stanislaus Literacy Centers in Modesto, California
Learn to Read in Jacksonville, Florida
MICA, INC, an adult literacy program in Africa
READ Muskegon in Muskegon, MI
Seeds of Literacy in Columbus, OH
Tarrant Literacy Coalition in Fort Worth, Texas

Vision Literacy in Santa Clara County, CA

SF Jail Inmates Free Their Minds, Find Peace Thanks To New SF Library Program via SF Chronicle

SF Jail Inmates Free Their Minds, Find Peace Thanks To New Library Program

SF Chronicle: 10.04.2018 by Evan Sernoffsky

If he could live in any other time, Mark D’Ascenzo would choose the Middle Ages. He imagines he’d be a knight following the legendary code of chivalry.

But here in this life, the towering 46-year-old is stuck behind bars at San Francisco County Jail No. 2, where opportunities for valor are slim, and time moves agonizingly slowly.

In recent weeks, though, D’Ascenzo has found a way to escape.

Staff members from the San Francisco Public Library recently began showing up every Tuesday with a cart full of books, bringing inmates a week’s worth of reading material, be it Westerns, self-help and travel books, or anything else requested.

“These books help me be somewhere else,” D’Ascenzo said from inside the jail during the anticipated Tuesday haul. “They have pretty much saved me.”

The library’s program — known as Jail and Re-entry Services, or JARS — kicked off in August with librarians bringing books by the tubful into the city’s three jails. Each of the jails previously had a small collection of reading materials that most inmates had read over and over. Any other books, they had to buy themselves.  READ MORE >>

Literacy – Spanning the US :: Rio Rancho NM :: Butte Co CA :: Siskiyou Co CA :: Ravalli Co MT

Literacy: Spanning the U.S.     

@ReadWestInc

ReadWest Asked To Vacate Its Premises

RR Observer: 10.08.2018 by Gary Herron

They still need reading and writing tutors — and now ReadWest needs a new home, too.

Located in what once was the AMRPO sales office, 2009 Grande Blvd., across from Haynes Park, since 1996, the county’s 29-year-old charity is seeking new digs.

ReadWest, Inc., one of New Mexico’s largest and oldest adult literacy programs learned about two weeks ago that it had been given 60 days to vacate its location in the Rio Rancho Jewish Center, executive director Muncie Hansen said.

“The owner wants to shut the building down and he can’t do anything till we’re all out,” Hansen said. “The congregation that has been here decided to disband. 

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“We want to stay in Rio Rancho, Sandoval County. We’re the only ones in the county helping people learn to read and write,” she said.  READ MORE >>

@ButteCoLibrary

Trivia Bee for Literacy on Oct. 26: ‘Everyone Has The Right To Read’

Chico ER: 10.08.2018 by Kyra Gottesman

What term is used to describe fishing with one’s hands? Where was the first diamond found in California? Hundreds of trivia questions like these will be posed to the nearly 30 teams competing in the 12th annual Trivia Bee for Literacy.

Scheduled for Oct. 26 in the Big Room at Sierra Nevada Brewery, the event raises funds for the Butte County Library Literacy Services. These services support adults and children in Butte County working to improve their reading and writing skills.

“It’s such a fun event. The crowd, which usually averages about 300 people, is an amazing representation of all the different kinds of people from the different communities in Butte County all coming together supporting everyone’s right to read,” said Heather Tovey, library literacy specialist.

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“The Trivia Bee goes beyond the boundaries of raising money. It promotes awareness and fights the stigma that goes along with not being able to read and write. It allows us to shout from the rooftops what we believe: Everyone has the right to read,” said Tovey.

In Butte County, 11 percent of the population 16 years and older lacks literacy skills, according to the 2016-2017 Community Action Plan by the California Department of Community Services and Development.

According to the same report, that’s a lower percentage of the population than the statewide average, which is 23 percent and the national average which is 14 percent.  READ MORE >>

Literacy Bitterroot

Adult Education, Literacy Levy On Ballot In Ravalli Co.

NBC Montana: 10.09.2018 by Kevin Maki

Voters in November will decide whether to approve a mill levy for adult basic and literacy education in Ravalli County.

The request is for 1.5 mills or $120,000 a year in perpetuity.

It would help fund instruction for students to earn their general equivalency high school diploma or to help them brush up for college or the workforce.

In 30 years Literacy Bitterroot has served more than 4,000 students in Ravalli County. But the nonprofit lost half its funding when the state regionalized services last year.

If the levy is approved Literacy Bitterroot would contract with the county for its services.  READ MORE >>