Showing posts with label Chula Vista. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chula Vista. Show all posts

Saturday, February 6, 2021

Chula Vista Library ▬ Susan Vega: Exploring a Library Professionals Journey to Provide Literacy for All

Exploring a Library Professionals Journey to Provide Literacy for All, and How Chula Vista Library Serves the City

@ChulaVistaLib

Literacy for All: Feb 2021 with Jose L Cruz, San Diego Council on Literacy

Susan Empizo Vega has a diverse 25-year history of providing library and literacy services in Southern California. The more we talked, the more we re-discovered the many hats that Susan has worn in her literacy professional journey, serving public libraries in Chula Vista, National City, San Diego, Carlsbad, and San Jose. Another discovery were the many community services that are being provided to the residents of Chula Vista through the library…especially given social-distancing. Join us we take this the journey from the past, to the present, of Susan’s amazing, meaningful, and informative adventures in library and literacy services.  LISTEN 57:46



Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Chula Vista Library ▬ Prepare For The US Citizenship Exam

Prepare For The US Citizenship Exam

Chula Vista
Public Library

Chula Vista Public Library: 12.30.2020

If one of your New Year's resolutions is to pass the US Citizenship Exam, the Chula Vista Public Library can help!

Beginning on Wednesday, January 13, 2021 from 4:00 - 5:30 pm, this weekly class will help you understand the recent changes to the exam, including the additional civics questions.

Please note that this class will be held online using the Microsoft Teams platform.

Registration is required.  READ MORE ➤➤

Adult Literacy

Work one-on-one with an adult tutor to improve reading and literacy skills.
Tutors meet with students once a week for 1 to 1-1/2 hours at a time in any branch of the Chula Vista Public Library. Tutor training is provided. Interested learners or tutors, (619) 397-0124.


Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Chula Vista Library :: Adult Literacy Program Seeking Volunteer Tutors

Adult Literacy Program Seeking Volunteer Tutors
Chula Vista Library: November 2016


Work one-on-one with an adult tutor to improve reading and literacy skills.  Tutors meet with students once a week for 1 to 1.5 hours at a time in any branch of the Chula Vista Library.  Tutor training is provided. Interested learners or tutors, contact Diana Ysla at (619)585-5760.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Chula Vista Library :: California Summer Reading Challenge

California Summer Reading Challenge : : 
Chula Vista Library

Public library summer reading programs build communities of readers and library users and help prevent summer learning loss. In 2014, over 700,000 Californians signed up for summer reading and over 1.3 million took part in summer reading activities.

The California Summer Reading Challenge provides libraries with resources to create innovative summer reading programs that keep California children, teens, and adults reading all summer long.

Help us meet our goal of #onemillionreaders in 2015!

"READ TO THE RHYTHM" SUMMER READING PROGRAM : : Chula Vista Library

The Chula Vista Public Library is hosting its 51st annual Summer Reading Program, “Read to the Rhythm,” through Saturday, July 18.  Kids, teens and adults are encouraged to sign up online or in person at any of the three library branches. Participants can read for designated lengths of time, and receive a prize at each level. Family members can also read to those unable to yet read.

A wide variety of entertaining and educational activities is scheduled at each branch, many with a musical theme.  All Summer Reading Program events are free of charge and open to the public. Highlights of the Read to the Rhythm program include music-related craft programs, musical story times, dance and yoga classes for all ages, interactive shows with musical instruments and drums, “Open Mic” nights for teens and adults, and much more. Traditional favorites include performances by Sparkles the Clown and Mad Science, “Book It” with Ronald McDonald, book clubs, ongoing story times, painting classes, author visits as well as U.S. citizenship classes.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

SCLLN Literacy Videos @ Pinterest

Southern California Library Literacy Network
Literacy Videos
of Adult Learners and Tutors
have been pinned on


Azusa City Library
Carlsbad City Library
Centro Latino for Literacy
Chula Vista Library
Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library
Newport Beach Library
Rancho Cucamonga Library
A K Smiley Redlands Library
San Diego County Library

Videos of Learner Stories and Tutor Stories can also be seen at

Thursday, September 30, 1993

Chula Vista Library - Chula Vista literacy team opens new worlds for adults and kids

Chula Vista literacy team opens new worlds for adults and kids
San Diego Union-Tribune: September 22, 1993 by Pauline Repard

Donna Colson never liked books and certainly never liked libraries.

She graduated high school barely able to read or to write more than her own name.

"I kept it a secret for as long as I could," Colson said. "It bothered me all my life. It was embarrassing to me to go and do anything about it."

But do something about it she did. She gathered her courage and joined a local adult-literacy program that now has her plowing through her children's books, as well as romance novels.

"I'm 33 years old and I never thought I could feel this good about myself," Colson said at her Chula Vista apartment yesterday. "I'm eager to learn. One day, I want to write a book on literacy, to encourage others."

The family-oriented reading program that has helped to improve Colson's life got its own helping hand yesterday from a state grant that will ensure its existence for a third year.

The City Council voted last night to accept a $23,000 state Families for Literacy grant for use by the Chula Vista Literacy Team. Funds will go for books and also cover the salaries for a part-time program coordinator, clerk and library associate.

A separate, federal grant of $34,845 also was accepted by the council for the literacy team, which will use it to pay a part-time instructor to teach spelling and writing to adults. Both programs will be in English only.

The city library's Chula Vista Literacy Team offers various programs for adults and children, including a family program at eight Head Start preschools around South Bay, and a new program to identify and assist those with learning difficulties caused by dyslexia.

Meg Schofield, literacy team director, said the chain of illiteracy often is passed through generations of a family, and, in order to break that chain, both children and parents must be helped.

"Children who are not read to, exposed to books or role models who read the papers are at a disadvantage in schools," said Schofield. "Our Family Reading Program provides every family with a beautiful collection of books and magazines that they select each month."

Tutors then work one-on-one with the adults. They work in six-month stretches that may cover years before the learner is confident and competent at reading at about an eighth-grade level. About 40 families participated last year.

Schofield said the program needs more volunteer tutors who can devote two 90-minute sessions each week to adult pupils. Tutor-training sessions begin in early October.

Schofield also is taking applications for the part-time writing instructor's job, which involves small groups of adults in weekly meetings. About 60 adults are expected to sign up for the eight-week courses, which repeat throughout the year.

Nestor resident Mae Traeger, 67, knows the thrill of helping open up someone's world through reading. The retired Sears sales clerk was just named Tutor of the Year for her work in the program since 1988.

"The thought of not being able to read -- that's a fate worse than death," said Traeger. "I thought if I could teach someone to read, that would be the most wonderful feeling. Books were my window to the world. A lot of things that I didn't see, I knew about. "

Each of her three students is a family man over 40 holding a blue-collar job. She proudly noted that one gained the confidence to write memos to his boss, while another found the joy of traveling to places he was able to read about.

Traeger said adults use a number of tricks to hide their inability to read or write. "They are good at bluffing and have terrific memories, or they say they forgot their glasses, could you read this," she said.

She encouraged others to volunteer as tutors, relying upon patience, good humor and a good phonetics reading guide to overcome inexperience. Traeger noted that she never wanted to be a teacher. Indeed, though a straight-A student, she quit high school at 17 to marry.

Colson earned a Learner of the Year award this year for her persistence and achievements. She not only reads to son William, 9, and daughter Michelle, 2, but she finished a Danielle Steele romance and is working through Bill Cosby's "Fatherhood."

She graduated from high school, she said, only because the teachers were tired of her fighting and troublemaking.

"I didn't like books, I didn't like libraries," Colson recalled. But about three years ago, she decided she would have to learn to read if she wanted a better life for her children. Since then, she said, she has read more than 175 books.

"I'm not ashamed that I've been illiterate. I'm doing something about it," said Colson.

Where to call for reading programs

Adult literacy programs in the South Bay:

ENGLISH ONLY

Chula Vista Literacy Team, 691-5760.
Project Read, National City, 474-2129.
Chula Vista Adult School, 691-5760.
Sweetwater Adult School, National City, 691-5725.

SPANISH OR ENGLISH

Montgomery Adult School, 691-5670.
San Ysidro Center, 691-5667.

Saturday, November 30, 1991

Chula Vista Library - Dr. Seuss helps meet parents' need to read

Dr. Seuss helps meet parents' need to read
San Diego Union: November 16, 1991 by Barbara Fitzsimmons

Patty Testa isn't going to let the Grinch steal this Christmas.

There will be books under the holiday tree at her Imperial Beach home, and she'll be able to read them to her children.

She always wanted to read "Green Eggs and Ham," "The Cat in the Hat" and other Dr. Seuss favorites to Adam, now 5, and Tina, now 9. But until Testa became a student of the Chula Vista Literacy Team (CVLT) a year ago, she didn't have the skill or the confidence.

"Tina was reading better than I was," Testa said. "Her homework was getting so hard I couldn't help her with it."

Testa had made it through the ninth grade without acquiring more than rudimentary reading skills. In the early grades, she was able to "con" her teachers, she said. In the ninth grade, they weren't so easy to fool, so she dropped out.

With help from a CVLT tutor, Testa has raised her reading to an 11th-grade level. Now she's involved in a new CVLT project called the Family Literacy Program. The program is designed to foster a love of reading within families by teaching parents how to read books to their young children.

Meg Schofield, coordinator of adult literacy for CVLT, said the program has two positive aspects. One, it allows adults who have trouble reading to start out with books that are easy and fun. Two, it passes the joy of reading on to children.

With money from a special grant, CVLT buys about $200 worth of children's books for each participating family. The majority of those books are by Dr. Seuss.

"Dr. Seuss is wonderful; he has so much fun with language," Schofield said. "He uses rhyming words, and he repeats words often. He's the king of phonics. He invents words, but they follow the rules of phonics."

In fact, the late Ted Geisel is so loved by local literacy groups that a "Dr. Seuss Tribute" will kick off the "San Diego Reads Best" campaign tomorrow at Balboa Park. The tribute, which will include readings of his books and a song dedicated to the author, who died in September, will run from noon to 2 p.m. at the Organ Pavillion.

Testa's tutor, Lori Thompson, said Dr. Seuss books are ideal early readers because they are colorful and creative with rhythmic sentences and punctuation that is easy to identify.

"Then he slid down the chimney. A rather tight pinch. But, if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch. He got stuck only once, for a moment or two. Then he stuck his head out of the fireplace flue where the little Who stockings all hung in a row. 'These stockings,' he grinned, are the first things to go!' "

Young Adam has just started reading on his own and already knows the ending to "Green Eggs and Ham."

"And I will eat them here and there. Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE! I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you! Thank you! Sam-I-am!"

Testa said she was frightened and embarrassed when she first asked for help with reading. Now, though, she is pleased to note that reading has become one of her family's favorite activities. She, Tina and Adam are all learning how to use the public library, and she has set some goals that will challenge her new knowledge of reading. First, she wants to get her driver's license; second, she wants to find a job working with computers.

The final paragraphs of Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go" may be a help.

"And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed! (98 3/4 percent guaranteed.) KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS! So ... be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea, you're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So ... get on your way!"