More Facts about Literacy

Most people involved in DC policy and advocacy know Susie Cambria (link is to her Twitter profile).  I will say on a personal note that I admire Susie and want to be her when I grow up.

Susie has a local-focus budget and policy blog.  This morning, she posted some facts about literacy in the DC area: Poor literacy affects 1 in 5 DC residents. You should definitely hop over and read the post; she links to a video of a C-Span segment (disclosure: I have not watched the video myself yet) and other information about literacy.

The title of her post comes from the the statistic that 1 in 5 adult residents of DC lack basic prose literacy skills.  As an aside, I am glad that poetry literacy is not included in "basic literacy," or I would have to be considered illiterate, much to the dismay of my aunt. However, in all seriousness, Susie's title understates the effect of poor literacy skills.  Poor literacy affects not just the adult, but the members of his or her family.  A parent with poor literacy is unable to help his or her child with homework, to read to the child, even perhaps to budget or read a cookbook to make healthy meals.  A parent with poor literacy is likely to be unemployed or underemployed, with the family living in poverty.  All these affect the children in the home, other family members who might need to take the children--or the entire family--in, and the community as a whole.

So while 1 in 5 adult residents may have poor literacy skills, poor literacy affects us all.

 

Literacy Volunteer Opportunity

The District of Columbia Public Library is seeking volunteers for its upcoming book sale.  Volunteers are needed to help set up (September 5, 7-10) and to help during the sale (September 11-12).  The web site indicates that it is necessary to apply if you are interested in volunteering.

 

Washington Literacy Council

My friend Drew recommended that I highlight Washington Literacy Council in this space.  Drew used to serve as their general counsel, and other friends of mine have volunteered as tutors through WLC.  

Washington Literacy Council offers a variety of programs for adult learners, each based on research and best practices.  Tutors receive training before being paired with students.  The WLC is expanding its outreach to young adults age 18-30 in order to have secondary impact on their children's school achievement.  And what strikes me the most is their Family Literacy Workshops.  These workshops help parents, many of whom did not have a strong background of reading at home with their own parents, to know how to build their children's early reading skills.  The workshops meet at schools with parents and their children to learn techniques and read together.  

If you'd like to contribute to the Washington Literacy Council to support the Family Literacy Workshops and other programs, you can do so here.

Everybody Wins! A National Literacy Organization

Everybody Wins! is a school-age literacy organization that has been getting a lot of press recently because Senator Kennedy volunteered regularly through Everybody Wins! DC.  It was on my radar anyway, and I learned just last night that the national organization is in the middle of a fundraising auction. The auction runs only through September 2, so check it out and make your bids soon!

Why should you support Everybody Wins?  I suppose it wouldn't be too compelling if I told you merely that their website features an adorable kid.  Instead, I will tell you that Everybody Wins is addressing the literacy gap between low-income and high-income communities, one mentor, one child, one book at a time.  The first statistic included in the literacy gap article is shocking and highlights the need for programs like Everybody Wins: "In the US, the typical middle-class child enters first grade with 1,000-1,700 hours of picture book reading time; a low-income child averages just 25." (Adams, M. (1990.) Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.)

Where will the money from this auction go?  This auction supports the national organization, which in turn supports local affiliates and the Power Lunch program.

If you cannot participate in the auction but would like to make a financial contribution, you may do so here.

Book Drive, part 2

Exciting news, here in Book Drive land.  Yesterday evening when I got home from work, I was pleased (and, to be honest, a little bit surprised) to find that there were already donations in the book drive box.  But today when I got home--the box was FULL and there was an entire other box of videos.  Wow.  Books for America will be quite pleased.

If you know where I live, feel free to stop by with contributions. 

Ted Kennedy

It seems that there is an obligation, whether a moral obligation or just through peer pressure, to dedicate a blog post to Ted Kennedy in the wake of his death the other day.  This is not intended to be a political blog, though I'm sure my biases will show through frequently, so I will not praise Senator Kennedy here for being the "Liberal Lion" or champion of health care reform. (For what it's worth, I do not believe that health care reform itself is a desire limited to liberals.  It is the details, not the goal, that inspire political acrimony. 

However, to the extent that "health care reform" has become a buzzword for the goal of a nationalized--to whatever degree-system, I will be avoiding the subject here.)

Senator Kennedy stated in 1985 that "The presidency is not my life; public service is."  His actions echoed these words.  As reported by Richard Lacayo on time.com:

...by the time of his death on Aug. 25 in Hyannis Port at the age of 77, [Senator Kennedy] had 46 working years in Congress, time enough to leave his imprint on everything from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009, a law that expands support for national community-service programs. Over the years, Kennedy was a force behind the Freedom of Information Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He helped Soviet dissidents and fought apartheid. Above all, he conducted a four-decade crusade for universal health coverage, a poignant one toward the end as the country watched a struggle with a brain tumor. But along the way, he vastly expanded the network of neighborhood clinics, virtually invented the COBRA system for portable insurance and helped create the laws that provide Medicare prescriptions and family leave.

Here in Washington, he regularly read to students at Brent Elementary School through Everybody Wins! DC. 

May we learn from his example and may his memory be for blessing.

Is Reading Really Fundamental? September 29

(UPDATED: Note that I am aware that there are weird font things going on here. I'll try to fix it and avoid similar issues in the future.)


From Ben Merrion at the District of Columbia Public Library: 

The Adult Literacy Resource Center at the DC Public Library in partnership with DC LEARNs will be hosting an FYI on Adult Literacy: “Is Reading Really Fundamental? How Adult Literacy Is Related to Different Social Issues” on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 from 6:30 - 8:30 pm at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G Street, NW  in the Great Hall.  Find out how adult literacy is connected to issues such as unemployment, poverty and health care.

Become engaged: interact with adult learners, providers and advocates; find out how adult literacy matters to you and DC; volunteer for an adult literacy program; and connect to the adult literacy blog. The featured speaker will be Talmadge Guy, author of Providing Culturally Relevant Adult Education: A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century.  

Please RSVP by September 20:  You can email: benjamin.merrion@dc.gov or call (202) 727-2431. You can also sign up on Idealist or Facebook.