Literacy: Spanning the US
Training
Offered For Literacy Volunteers
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.
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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
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Experience
in Serbia Inspired Oakland Literacy Council Volunteer to Help Others Learn
English
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.”
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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
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TRANSFORMING
LIVES: Literacy Efforts Lauded At Annual Luncheon
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.
New
UVU Lab Conducting Research For Nonprofit Organizations
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 >>
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