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Cache aiming to improve literacy; training for tutors begins in February
By Brook Cox
Click here for a look at the strategies of the new Literacy Coalition LOGAN- Imagine not being able to fill out your application for a driver's license. Eight percent of Cache County residents cannot read well enough to perform everyday activities like that, according to the National Adult Literacy Survey, conducted by Congress in 1998. Low literacy is a problem America has been trying to solve, and Cache County has programs to help residents solve their low literacy struggles. The National Institute for Literacy defines the lowest level of literacy, Level 1, as being able to perform very simple tasks involving reading, but lacking the skill to do certain reading, writing and computational skills that are considered necessary for functioning in everyday life. Examples of these everyday skills include being able to find information in texts, such as newspapers, being able complete forms, such as a Social Security application, and being able to interpret graphs, charts, and tables of employee benefits, according to the National Institute of Literacy. Although eight of every 100 Cache County residents have Level 1 literacy struggles, 11 of 100 residents in Utah are at Level 1. Cache County's number of residents at Level 1 literacy level is second lowest in the state. (Summit County is the lowest, with 7 percent of its population at Level 1.) About 40 million American adults -- or about 21 to 23 percent of the population -- operate at Level 1 literacy, according to the survey. Utah's and Cache County's literacy levels are much higher than the national average. Logan has many literacy resources, one of which is the Bridgerland Literacy program, with offices in the Logan City Library. Twenty to 30 percent of the program works with children and most of the program resources go to adults, said Brandilee Kusee, director of Bridgerland Literacy. Kusee said most of the time adults come in for help because they have something significant coming up in which they need to know how to read better. They come in because they need to take a driver's license test, a test at work, want to pass the GED test, or receive U.S. citizenship. Many parents come in because they want to be able to read to their children, Kusee said. Bridgerland Literacy trains volunteer tutors every February in a four-week, 12-hour training course. These tutors work one-on-one with the people who need help, Kusee said. They work for immediate success by using each person's obstacle to teach them. Bridgerland Literacy's office is full of driver's education manuals that are used in reading programs, so that students who came in order to be able to pass their driver's license test can feel like they have had immediate success and hopefully continue to improve their reading skills, Kusee said. Bridgerland Literacy currently works with 185 students, and their reading abilities increase two grade levels on average each year. "Our students range from 6 years old to 70 years old," Kusee said, "and we try to use contextual literacy for everyone," meaning the tutors work with experiences from the students lives to help them to be able to read at a higher level. Bridgerland Literacy and other programs around the state also promote "Family Literacy." It helps to work with a whole family at once, Kusee said. Literacy problems pattern in families, Kusee said, and it could possibly be genetic. "It's very important to encourage family reading," Kusee said. Utah tends to be a more family-oriented state, which could account for the reason for its higher than average literacy levels, she said. Children from homes where the parents have low levels of literacy don't get read to, and they don't see reading as fun in their home. Children in these homes also don't usually get the help with school work that they need and so they tend to fall behind in school and in their reading and end up with many of the same reading struggles as their parents, Kusee said. The impact of low literacy levels in a home can have a huge effect on future generations, according to the Bridgerland Literacy pamphlet. Another resource is the "America Reads" program, administered through public schools. Compared with the Salt Lake City school district, Cache County has exceptional reading programs for children, said Carol Rosenthal, director of the America Reads program at the Academic Resource Center at Utah State University. They have really worked to get money to hire reading specialists, she said. The America Reads program focuses on kindergarten through third grade, Rosenthal said, because 40 percent of fourth graders read below their grade level. Rosenthal said ethnic minority children have a bigger problem than others. Sixty percent of African-American fourth-graders read below grade level and 64 percent of Hispanic fourth-graders read below grade level. Sometimes it is just really hard for a child whose second language is English to learn how to read, Rosenthal said. America Reads has hired 18 work-study Utah State college students to go into the schools in the Cache Valley and help the teachers teach students to read. They work with kids of all ages and ethnic groups, Rosenthal said. "Kids can drastically learn to read better if they have one-on-one time," Rosenthal said. "You get to a point where all academics suffer if a child cannot read. We want to increase their enthusiasm so they want to read." People with low literacy levels are at a huge disadvantage in the American society. Forty- three percent of Level 1 literacy adults live in poverty, and the likelihood of being on welfare goes up as literacy level goes down, according to the National Institute of Literacy. Adults at Level 1 literacy level earned an average of $240 per week,
compared to adults at the highest level of literacy who earned $681
per week. Seven of 10 prisoners scored in the lowest levels of literacy. |
Archived Months:
September
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