Literacy In The News :: Spanning North America
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News 5: 10.07.2020 by Jade Jarvis
From
in-person to remote, and hybrid learning - the COVID-19 pandemic has changed
the way students are going to school this year.
But
it's not just kids, adult students are also having to make adjustments.
Seeds
of Literacy helps more than 1,000 adult students each
year with free, basic education and preparation for the GED and other exams.
When they had to shut down in March, their main concern was connecting with
those students and making sure they could continue on that path to success.
“I
said after I had turned a certain age, I would like to go back to school,”
Eddie Clark, a Seeds student, said.
When
he started coming to Seeds’ east side classroom about two years ago he
struggled to read. But that soon changed after weekly lessons with his tutor,
Ed Round.
“My
reading has got better. My math is getting better. My personality is getting
better because now I got a mission, you know, I got a goal,” Clark said.
Clark
said he almost lost that momentum when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“I
thought I would probably change my mind due to the corona, and probably be back
out in the streets or whatever but the Lord didn't have that chance for me,”
Clark said.
The
staff at Seeds wasn’t going to let that happen either.
They
shut down for two weeks in March but immediately started working on a remote
learning strategy.
“We spent the first two weeks really trying to figure out - how can we make this work? What does it look like? So we decided to take an immediate approach with the free conference call lines,” Kara Krawiec, the site coordinator at Seeds East, said. LISTEN 03:08
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Bay Today: 10.07.2020 by Matt Sookram
It
is never easy for a child to admit they aren’t sure of what’s being taught to
them in school. It can be even harder for an adult to say, “I can’t do this,
and I need help.” That’s where Literacy Nipissing
has stepped in for the past 42 years.
“We
help adults who want to upgrade their skills and/or get a GED Diploma
Certificate,” says Executive Director Vandra McQuarrie. “We work with people
who might have left school before they got their grade 12. We also work with
people who have their high school diploma but might not know how to do a
certain math that is required by their employer. So, we help them upgrade those
skills.”
Since
1978 McQuarrie says they have helped approximately 5,200 learners over that
time and have also worked with over 2,000 volunteers. McQuarrie has been with
the Literacy organization for almost three decades herself.
“I
started doing this over 28 years ago in Elliot Lake where the focus was on
helping miners who had recently been laid off.”
She says the goal has always been to help people improve their life skills. READ MORE ➤➤
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Oakland Post: 10.07.2020 by Cayla Smith, Campus Editor
Two
Oakland University students fight against the impact adult illiteracy in Oakland
County.
The
Oakland Literacy Council was founded in 1984 by Robert Gaylor, after
attending a conference on adult illiteracy hosted by former First Lady, Barbara
Bush. After 35 years of service, they’re still dedicated to ending adult
illiteracy.
A
recent study by The Program for the International Assessment of
Adult Competencies (PIAAC) found that 111,000 adults in Oakland
County are functionally illiterate.
“Functionally
illiterate means that people function at the lowest level of illiteracy or
below,” Executive Director Lisa Machesky said. “They would struggle to fill out
job applications, read bus schedules, prescription labels or emails from their
children’s school”.
Being
a non-profit organization, the program relies on tutors in the fight against
adult illiteracy.
Paul Kozlowski, biology major, had two motivations for getting involved: the misinformation spreading because of COVID-19 combined with the misunderstanding of information put out by the federal government and Kozlowski comes from a family of immigrants. READ MORE ➤➤
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Salisbury Post: 10.08.2020
The
pandemic has brought at least one silver lining to the Literacy Council: a
flood of new tutors.
“A few months into the pandemic, we noticed an uptick in new tutor applications. We started seeingout-of-area tutor applications–Goldsboro and Cullowhee for example— from college students,” said Literacy Council Program Coordinator Laurel Harry. “This is a game changer, and we hope to continue to attract new tutors from both inside and outside Rowan County.”
In
the past tutors typically met students in the Rowan Public library for face-to-face tutoring.
When COVID19 necessitated a shift from in-person to virtual tutoring, tutors and students adjusted to meet over video-conferencing apps like Zoom or WhatsApp. It no longer mattered if either party was actually in Salisbury. “We started hearing about students attending class while driving to the mountains or beach, and tutors teaching from out of state. In the past, these trips would have meant lost classes.
Now,
the tutoring can continue, even if folks are out of town,” said Harry.
New tutors will be working with students virtually. All tutors are working with either English as a Second Language students or GED students. LISTEN 05:11
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