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Test Administrators Needed
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Volunteer to become a test administrator for Adult Literacy and ESL Students. We are looking for volunteers to assist our staff with student intake and literacy assessments. Must have transportation and be willing to administer test at tutoring sites in the Little Rock area. We will provide free training and certification.
Contact Shelly Owens: sowens@literacylittlerock.org.
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Spread the Word
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Would you like to put your writing and creative skills to work? We are looking for volunteers to help with web site content. No special web skills needed, just a passion to tell the story about adult literacy in Central Arkansas. We have so many great stories to tell!
Contact: njones@literacylittlerock.org
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Literacy Action Newsletter
June 2011 |
Greetings!
Everyone looks forward to the summer months as a more relaxed time of the year. Did I say relaxed? June started off with the Shine a Light on Literacy event with over 200 hundred people showing support for adult literacy by attending an evening of art, literature, and food at the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. Already in June we have trained and paired ten new adult literacy tutors with students. These new tutors will be joining our current group of tutors who continue to meet with their students regardless of the season. You will want to tell your friends about the Adult Basic tutor training scheduled on August 27th. A new conversation class is starting at the Main Library for advanced ESL students, and our new computer lab is open for business. Two Vista Volunteers are working this summer to develop a new program to teach parents to read to children. And finally, new Board Members and Officers will be leading the organization to support our mission.
Take a few minutes to catch up on the news. We have many different ways to get engaged this summer.
Neil Jones
Executive Director |
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New Literacy Action Officers and Board Members
At the Literacy Action Annual Meeting held on June 14, 2011, the membership elected new Officers for 2012, as well as three new Board members for a three-year term. We are excited that we continue to attract strong leadership to serve on the Literacy Action Board and are extremely grateful for the service of this year's officers and board members who have guided the organization over the last year.
Literacy Action Officers
Dan Boland, President
Lee Hartz, Vice President
Bill Foster, Treasurer
Andrew Linn, Secretary
New Board Members
Phyllis Haynes
Louene Lipsmeyer
Jim Nosari
Stefanie Holt Vann
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Adult Basic Tutor Workshop
 The next Adult Basic Tutor Workshop is scheduled for August 27th. Over the last few months, the number of adults seeking help with literacy skills has continued to be strong. Currently we have 18 adult literacy students waiting to be assigned to a tutor and we are receiving 2 - 3 new students each week. Tell a friend about tutoring opportunities with Literacy Action. We would be happy answer any question they may have. To register on line, visit the Literacy Action web site or contact Katie Keen, 501-372-7323. |
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Computer Lab open for business
 | | Shelly Owens |
Our computer lab will be opening soon thanks to a generous donation from CALS.We will offer resources for both ESL and Basic Literacy students and their tutors. Our goal is to provide additional opportunities for language and reading practice. In addition, students who are waiting to be matched with a tutor can begin working with a computer lab volunteer and start with the basics right away. We plan to offer basic reading programs for use with adult literacy students, and we have several ESL options available, including Rosetta Stone English I and English II. We can assist our students in accessing Mango provided by CALS. Mango, an online program for learning foreign languages, also includes ESL instruction in Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, French, German, and Russian. The computer lab will have headsets available for pronunciation practice.
If you are interested in volunteering in the computer lab, please contact Shelly Owens at sowens@literacylittlerock.org or call (501)372-7323. We would like to have morning and afternoon availability. This is a great opportunity for those who aren't able to do one-on-one tutoring but would still like to get involved.
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Literacy Action Conversation Class
 | | Katie Keen |
Language learning is a life-long process that requires constant practice, correction, instruction, and encouragement. Most English students come to us at the beginning of this process in order to learn the basics of the language, "Hello, how are you? My name is..." etc. For years we have helped them with this through one-on-one and classroom tutoring, and it has become apparent that our work is paying off. Many of our students have grown past the first step of English learning and are ready to put their years of grammatical book study to practice, which is why we've started our first conversation club here at Literacy Action.
The class is designed to help students gain a more diverse and complex English vocabulary while easing the fluency of their English speaking. We work on this through reading, discussing, and listening to abstract pieces of English language works. In the first class we discussed the presence of similes and metaphors in the book, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. This introduces a variety of English idioms and slang not found in a traditional English classroom setting furthering their knowledge and experience in the English language learning process.
If you or your English student are interested in attending, please contact Katie Keen at kkeen@literacylittlerock.org or call (501) 372-7323. The class will be held the first Thursday of every month from 6 to 7 pm in the workshop room of Literacy Action. 100 S. Rock St. Suite 532, Little Rock, AR 72201.
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Family Literacy, Parents Reading to Children
 | | Molly Rector and Sharon Ditter |
Molly Rector and Sharon Ditter are our new Summer VISTA associates, hired through Americorps to help us design our new family literacy program. Molly grew up in Little Rock and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Sharon grew up in Texas and has lived in Little Rock since graduating from Hendrix in 2008. The program they are building will focus on working with parents who have young children. According to NCES, in families at or below the poverty line, only 21.3 percent of children are read to by their parents on a regular basis. In many cases, this is because parents have never really learned to read. In this new program, parents will work toward learning to comfortably read children's books aloud. At the completion of the program, each parent will have several new children's books for their own library and many new ways to spend time with their kids! In addition to encouraging family literacy, this program will allow literacy tutor volunteers new ways to get involved with Literacy Action.
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A Winning Combination
 | Oliver
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When Oliver landed in Little Rock after Hurricane Katrina forced thousands to flee New Orleans, he could not have predicted the move would have put him on the pathway to employment and literacy. Reading was always difficult for him. He told a local news reporter, "From first to eighth grade, I got skipped up without ever learning anything." Even though he managed to get by, Oliver admits he could only read a few words. Encouraged by his supervisor at the Arkansas Food Bank, Oliver connected with Literacy Action for help. Literacy Action volunteer Bridget Farris tutors Oliver several times a week at the Dee Brown library located in southwest Little Rock, and she reports he is making steady progress on his reading assignments. She uses time-tested tutoring methods and supplements the curriculum with material hand-picked for her student. Oliver is proud of his accomplishments, and he now feels that he is on track to improve his reading skills, "It's my goal to finish, that's why I never miss a tutor or session," Oliver said. His employer is delighted that Oliver has taken action to improve his reading skills and hopes this will give him more opportunities to contribute to their organization. Does this story sound like a win-win all around? Well, it is, because the story is part a of formula that works when individuals, employers, and community volunteers are motivated to work together in order to improve adult literacy.
Oliver is part of a national story about 93 million adults (30,000 in central Arkansas) who struggle every day with low literacy skills. Adult Literacy is deeply embedded in many of the thorny problems facing our community: educational attainment, employment, low wages, healthcare cost, civic engagement and other burdens on our society such as an increasing prison population and welfare. These are big complex issues and it is hard to comprehend how these problems can ever be solved. And then there is the question we ask ourselves, how can we best contribute to a solution? Perhaps we should first focus on what we know how to do...teach an adult to read.
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