Literacy:
Spanning the U.S.
Adult
Education And Family Literacy Week
Every week the Good Morning Show team inspires kids to Read 2 Succeed.
But that message extends to the entire family too.
"We're
launching an Adult Literacy Day of Giving on September 25, 2015 to raise
awareness about adult literacy and encourage people to get involved by
volunteering, supporting and donating," said Lydia Davis, the
organization's volunteer services coordinator. "We're hoping to raise
$25,000 with its $25 for 25 years campaign."
Davis
points to all the people that have learned how to read or improved their skills
through Reading Connections and how many more would be able to learn with more
funding.
"I've
only been a tutor with Willie and his group for about a year now, but I've
already seen so much growth in everyone there.
We're a little pack, essentially. There are a lot of good people
there," said Davis. READ MORE !
Manager
hid lack of literacy skills
Judy
Brown had a long and successful career managing paint stores despite a personal
limitation she concealed from co-workers and customers.
Brown
never graduated from high school, and her reading comprehension and writing
skills were below average.
“I
didn’t want people to know I didn’t have the education they probably thought I
did,” Brown, a 66-year-old Kelowna woman recalled Monday.
“For
example, I could read novels, but I couldn’t understand some of the words in
them,” she said. “I would try to puzzle out the meaning from the context, and I
could usually get by that way.”
However,
she had no confidence in her writing ability and would try to avoid any tasks
that involved setting pen to paper or using a keyboard.
It
was two years ago that Brown began using the services of Project Literacy, a non-profit group that
helps adults and new Canadians improve their reading, writing and numeracy
skills. During that time, the transformation in Brown has been remarkable, says
her tutor, Miriam Tetler. READ MORE !
Feldmann:
Tackling illiteracy
During
National Literacy Awareness Week (Sept.
20-26), it is worth noting that the United States is facing a literacy crisis.
Literacy is generally defined as having the ability to understand, evaluate,
use and engage with written text to participate in society, to achieve one’s
goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.
While
much attention has rightly been given to the importance of childhood literacy,
there is also the related challenge of adult illiteracy. An estimated 36
million adult Americans cannot read above an average third-grade level, and
many cannot read or write English at all. A study conducted between 2011-2012
by the Project for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies found
that the U.S. mean literacy score was below the international average, ranking
16th out of 24 participating countries.
ProLiteracy, a leading national nonprofit literacy
organization, provides alarming statistics on its website about how profoundly
low literacy affects U.S. society:
~Among
adults over the age of 16 with the lowest literacy rates, 43 percent live in
poverty;
~75
percent of state prison inmates and 59 percent of federal prison inmates did
not complete high school or can be classified as low literate;
~Low
literacy adds an estimated $20 billion annually to U.S. health care costs;
~The
effects of low literacy cost the U.S. economy $25 billion annually in lower
workforce productivity and lower tax revenues due to unemployment;
~Statistical
analyses show that English proficient legal immigrants (who comprise
approximately 16 percent of the U.S. civilian workforce) earn between 13-24
percent more than immigrants who are not.
The
adult literacy crisis in the U.S. is also a reality in our region. The
Weldon-Cooper Institute at UVa estimates that more than 25,000 adults living in
the region — including the cities of Roanoke and Salem, as well as the counties
of Craig, Franklin, Roanoke, Botetourt, and Alleghany — are functionally
illiterate. That alarming number is divided between native-born English
speakers, and refugees and legal immigrants.
READ MORE !
Literacy
Week: Help Us Help Adults Become Literate
Student Advocate, Second Start Adult Literacy
I
work for Oakland’s adult literacy program, Second Start. We have been in existence
for 30 years and we have watched the demographics change. We are serving more
immigrants from countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The region of
South and West Asia is home to more than one-half of the global low-literate
population (51.8%), while sub-Saharan Africa is home to an additional 21.4%.
There are many changes for these communities, and literacy is one.
At
Second Start we try to make the transition to America smoother. We help
students access citizenship resources online, fill out forms, practice
pronunciation and build vocabulary. While we don’t offer formal ESL
instruction, we do help many adults -- who are conversational in English – to
build literacy skills and achieve their goals. READ MORE !
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