Literacy – Spanning the US :: Belfast ME :: Bloomfield Hills MI :: St Joseph MO :: Provo UT

Literacy: Spanning the US       

Waldo Reads

Training Offered For Literacy Volunteers

Waldo Village Soup: 4.15.2019

Literacy Volunteers of Waldo County is offering a four-week training course for those interested in literacy, reading and how to foster those interests in others through tutoring.

═════════►‎

According to ProLiteracy, the national nonprofit sponsoring organization of Literacy Volunteers, more than 30 million adults in the United States cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third grade level and more than 10 million Americans have reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level.

In Waldo County, according to the Waldo CAP Needs Assessment Report 2017, one in 13 Waldo County residents are lacking the basic functional literacy skills necessary to complete a driver’s license test or job application.

“In the past year, Literacy Volunteers has maintained close to 20 matches at any one time," Pendleton said. "Our goal is to increase those tutor-student learning partnerships, because there are clearly many more in need of our services than we can reach. Our volunteers help as tutors and also in outreach to promote awareness and access to the literacy learning opportunities we provide.  READ MORE >>

Oakland Literacy

Experience in Serbia Inspired Oakland Literacy Council Volunteer to Help Others Learn English

Oakland County Times: 4.15.2019 BY Oakland Literacy Council

Carole Lally remembers how hard it was for her to move to a new country and not speak a word of the local language. She never forgot the kindness of a stranger who became her lifeline, and she vowed to pay the favor forward once she retired. She is doing just that as a volunteer tutor for Oakland Literacy Council, which provides free one-on-one instruction in reading, writing, and speaking English to Oakland County residents.

Years ago, Lally’s husband took a job assignment in Serbia. Although her husband could rely on an interpreter on the job, she was on her own to get around Belgrade. Fortunately, her landlady spoke some English and offered to teach Lally enough Serbian to survive – the names of foods in the local market, the routes of local buses, everyday expressions. Eventually, Lally was able to enroll in language classes, and she became immersed in the local culture until she and her husband moved back to the United States two years later.

“Because someone cared enough to help me learn a new language,” Lally recalls, “I knew that I wanted to help someone else.”

═════════►

Since its founding 35 years ago, Oakland Literacy Council has helped more than 10,000 adult learners improve their literacy skills, matching students with tutors who deliver individualized instruction right in their local neighborhood at a time that works for the student. READ MORE >>

TRANSFORMING LIVES: Literacy Efforts Lauded At Annual Luncheon

News Press: 4.16.2019 by Ken Newton

A lesson of literacy proved the story of a life for Dr. Daniel Shepherd. That life belonged to his father.

The father saw himself on the same path of his father, one of hard labor, violence and ignorance. So he made a life change, earning a college degree in his 30s and encouraging his sons to do the same.

That encouragement would result in nine college degrees for those sons, including a doctorate that propelled Shepherd to a job as chair of Missouri Western State University’s Department of Education.

“If you want to change lives, there is one way to do it that is sure-fire, that always works,” he said. “If you want to change someone’s stars, give them this ... an education.”

Shepherd’s rousing speech proved the ideal prelude Tuesday to the 29th annual Literacy Luncheon at Missouri Western.

“You checked the inspirational box today,” said Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, namesake of the Roy Blunt Literacy Citation.  READ MORE >>

Project Read

New UVU Lab Conducting Research For Nonprofit Organizations

Daily Herald: 4.16.2019 by Braley Dodson

Shauna Brown has spent years watching lives being changed by Project Read. Soon, she’ll start receiving the data from Utah Valley University’s new Social Impact Metrics Lab to back it up.

“We are super excited about it,” said Brown, the executive director of Project Read. “We are grateful to have awesome universities in the county who are open to giving us the manpower and knowledge and know-how to do these things we would never be able to do on their own.”

Project Read — an adult literacy program based out of the Provo City Library — is one of the first organizations to team up with the UVU’s Social Impact Metrics Lab, or SIMLab, for short. The lab began running in December out of the Center for Social Impact at UVU with the aim of doing research for local nonprofit organizations.

“Most don’t have the bandwidth or the expertise to run these sorts of studies, collect the data and analyze it, and do something meaningful with it,” said Jonathan Westover, the director of academic service learning at the Center for Social Impact.  READ MORE >>