Literacy In The News ::
Spanning North America
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Star Phoenix: 3.26.201 by Bre McAdam
At a jazz show in Saskatoon, you knew the act
was good when front desk volunteer Jean Spurgeon put down her book to go
listen.
She always had a book, whether she was
volunteering, riding the bus or on a break at work, said her daughter, Bev
Kowaluk.
READ Saskatoon was close to Spurgeon’s heart. She was one of their first volunteers from 1980 until 1992, working out of the Frances Morrison library to help adults with reading and writing.
She received a Canada
Literacy Volunteer Award in 1990, a certificate
of appreciation from READ’s former director and a touching letter written about
her, by one of her students, in 1992.
“One thing that mom had always commented on
through the years is that she helped adults increase their reading and writing
skills, increase their knowledge and their confidence,” Kowaluk said. READ
MORE ➤➤
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WZZM 13: 3.26.2021 by Jon Mills
Read Muskegon is honoring the passing of a long-time board member by giving 250 books to some of Muskegon County youngest residents.
The books will be included in education bags
the MAISD's Early On program delivers to families in Muskegon County with
children between 0 and 3 years of age.
Read Muskegon says the effort fits the
agency's mission to connect Muskegon County residents with services to improve
literacy in individuals and in turn improve the literacy of the county as a
whole.
The 250 copies of "Zoom, Zoom, Baby!" were purchased with memorial funds contributed to Read Muskegon in
honor of long-time Read Muskegon board member Merle Scolnik who passed away in
January at the age of 77.
Read Muskegon's Executive Director Mellissa
Moore says Scolnik asked before her passing that any memorial donations in her
name be sent to Read Muskegon.
The books are something the Early On program
will get into the hands of parents and grandparents who will use reading to get
their child or grandchild ready for school.
READ
MORE ➤➤
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Inside Nova: 3.27.2021 by Scott McCaffrey
Imagine you parachute into the middle of
Tokyo – a Tokyo where nobody speaks English and you speak nary a word of
Japanese – and your primary goal is to find some way, any way, to understand enough
to communicate with those around you.
That was the test of a number of volunteers
taking part in “A Taste of Literacy,” part of a March 25 online fund-raising
and public-awareness effort of the Literacy
Council of Northern Virginia.
The initiative was a chance for participants
to “have us walk in the shoes of English-language learners,” said Xavier Muñoz,
associate director of teaching of learning for the non-profit social-safety-net
organization.
Muñoz for 20 minutes led the volunteers –
Ashley King, Wafa Misellati, Jeff DiMeglio, Ruba Afzal and Will Canas, among
others – in a full-immersion, no-English-allowed, trial-and-error foray in
Japanese.
“It’s very challenging,” Muñoz promised the
participants, who gamely struggled in front of a Zoom audience.
And that was the point – to show the trials
gone through by those who do not have English-language skills and have to learn
from scratch using the services of the Literacy Council. READ MORE ➤➤
In Menlo: 3.29.2021 by Linda Hubbard
Menlo Park resident Mike Goodkind says he’s
always been interested in the “world of words.”
“I worked on my high school and college
daily and then went into the Peace Corps as I thought that experience might be
useful for a journalist,” he recalled.
He worked for the Associated Press in Los
Angeles before embarking on a 20-year career as an editor, science
communicator, and public relations specialist at Stanford Medical Center,
retiring in 2002. Soon after, he learned about Project Read and did part-time
work as a computer lab coordinator for Redwood City Project Read for
four years.
“I really enjoyed that and eventually took
on a volunteer position at the Menlo Park Library’s
Project Read program,” he said.
A turning point came in 2019 when a new
library director took over “with lots of visionary ideas.”
In May 2020, the organization adopted a new name, Literacy Partners – Menlo Park. “The name emphasizes both our community focus and our enduring commitment to literacy,” Mike wrote in a letter to donors. “We have revised our bylaws and mission statement to broaden our mission so that we can support other literacy programs besides Project Read. With our new mission and concurrent changes in our structure and bylaws, we will now have the opportunity to fund programs that will more broadly help family, childhood and youth literacy. READ MORE ➤➤
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