Lompoc Library - Literacy program in jeopard

Literacy program in jeopardy
Santa Maria Times: 6.18.2011 by Christina Chill

Consider your own life and how you would function without the ability to read and write. Simple everyday tasks like reading your emails, deciphering driving instructions, or writing a check would be daunting.

More challenging tasks like reading the want ads, balancing a checkbook, or filling out a job application could be virtually impossible without help from a confidant.

Nearly every thing we do on the job, at home, and in the community requires a certain level of reading, writing, and reasoning skills, yet nearly one-fifth of English speaking residents in Lompoc are illiterate.

Many are immigrants, who have learned to speak English well enough to get by, but lack the literacy skills to compete for 21st century jobs. Others were born in the United States, but for a variety of reasons failed in our traditional school system. A few have learning disabilities. Others are dropouts. Some have graduated from high school without having acquired the necessary skills to function in today’s information driven society.

For 21 years, the Lompoc Public Library has been giving these adults a second chance and an opportunity to succeed in life through free individualized tutoring by professionally-trained volunteers. Our “Each one Teach one” method is not only cost effective, but has helped 2,000 residents improve their skills and achieve their goals, from getting a job to enrolling in college. As a result, many have moved off welfare or other governmental services, and are productive citizens in our community.

The economic crisis in Lompoc has put our Literacy Program in jeopardy. Without community support, we could face elimination of these vital services in the upcoming months. You can help to keep our program afloat by supporting the Friends of the Library food booth at Flower Festival. All proceeds benefit literacy. We will be serving barbecue chicken dinners, jalapeno chicken poppers, drinks, and almond brittle. We will also have a slide show presentation at our booth, so you can see some of the faces of those we serve and the volunteers who make the program possible. Hope to see you there.

Christina Chill
Literacy Coordinator
Lompoc

Lompoc Valley Flower Festival
June 22 - 26
Ryon Park

Lompoc Library - Reading program helps adults learn

Reading program helps adults learn
Lompoc Record: September 15, 2010

Adults who cannot read may face barriers in learning the critical skill. They may not be able to attend conventional classes because of employment or child care issues. They may be embarrassed or fearful. Some may believe it is too late for them to learn.

There is a free program at the Lompoc Public Library, however, that provides adults the opportunity to learn to read with a qualified tutor in one-to-one sessions.

Sessions even can be scheduled on evenings and weekends.

The program allows students to set their own goals, from filling out a job application to getting a drivers license to being able to read to a child.

The Lompoc Library Adult Reading Program operates with one paid employee and more than 50 dedicated volunteer tutors who guide adult learners through a structured series of reading instruction workbooks.

The more than 1,700 students who have participated and met their reading goals have been empowered to find better jobs, open their own small businesses, pass the GED exam, and become U.S. citizens, according to a program spokesperson.

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For more information about the Lompoc Public Library’s literacy programs, call 735-7323. READ MORE !

Adult Literacy Awareness Month - Lompoc Library - Los Angeles Public Library

Adult Literacy Awareness Month

September Spotlight

on SCLLN Literacy Programs

Lompoc Public Library

Adult Reading Program was established at the Lompoc Public Library in1989 to provide basic reading and writing instruction to adults with low literacy skills. The goal of the program is to reduce illiteracy in Lompoc and promote life-long learning. The program offers one-to-one and small group tutoring through the use of professionally trained volunteers. Volunteers are the key to the success of the program. They contribute 5,000 hours of volunteer service each year. Unlike classroom instruction, library based literacy instruction is entirely student centered with lessons developed to support each learner's unique goals, such as getting a drivers license, passing the citizenship test, obtaining new or improved employment, or passing the GED. Since the program's inception over a thousand Lompoc residents have improved their literacy skills and reached their personal goals.

Using data released from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy and the 2000 census figures, it is estimated that 21.6% of adults in Lompoc are functioning at the below basic level and therefore lack the necessary skills to accomplish everyday activities like filling out a job application, reading the directions on a medicine bottle, writing a personal check, or reading a simple bedtime story to their child. However mundane these tasks may seem, they can be frustrating and nearly impossible for someone who is illiterate.

Reach Out and Read

To promote the values associated with early literacy and to reach out to underprivileged families, the Library partnered with the Santa Barbara Public Health Department in 2003 to establish a Reach Out and Read (ROR) Program. ROR is a pediatric literacy program that promotes early literacy development and the importance of reading aloud to parents at well child checkups. The program also provides free books and storytimes for low income patients who attend the clinic. Volunteers, particularly Spanish-speaking, are needed to read to children one or two hours a week on Wednesdays & Fridays.

LAPL Adult Literacy Program

Work one on one with an adult tutor to improve your reading and literacy skills. Tutors meet with students in any branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. This service is free. They meet twice a week for 1 to 1½ hours at a time for a minimum of six months.

Lompoc Library - Celebrate Literacy Day by becoming a volunteer

Celebrate Literacy Day by becoming a volunteerLompoc Record: 9.04.07 - by Linda Warren

“International Literacy Day” is observed annually on Sept. 8 - this Saturday - to focus attention on worldwide literacy needs. More than 780 million of the world's adults, (nearly two-thirds women) don't know how to read or write. Between 94 and 115 million children lack access to education. Even in one of the richest countries in the world, illiteracy is a very sad fact.

I recently became a tutor, after I retired from a long career, and have been richly blessed by my student. I was trained in a few short evenings and was surprised that I needed no formal education in teaching to become a tutor. I had a friend years before, whose mother had taught others to read in the evening at the library. I thought to myself that I could also become a volunteer someday, once I retired and had more time. I discovered that it only takes a couple of hours a week to be a tutor, meeting twice a week.

My first student is a woman originally from another country, who only completed eighth grade. She is very eager to learn and is an excellent student. She signed up for many reasons, one of which is to be able to communicate with others and advance at her job. We have become friends and enjoy the time that we spend together. Not only do I have an opportunity to teach her to improve her reading skills, but I have also gained a friend.

To address the problem of illiteracy in our community, the Lompoc Public Library established an Adult Reading Program in 1998. In 18 years, the program has assisted more than 1,200 adults with improved reading and writing skills. The program is partly funded by the state library and the City of Lompoc, but contributions from community organizations and individuals assure the program's services will continue.

To become a volunteer tutor or make a tax-free donation, simply call 735-READ or stop by the library during regular hours and check with someone at the desk for more information. The next tutor training workshop starts Sept. 19 in the evening. This is a wonderful opportunity that anyone can do who has the desire to help someone read. It's changed my life and I know that it will change yours as well. Be a tutor and become a friend to someone today. Give the gift of reading today.

Linda Warren is literacy tutor for the Lompoc Public Library.

Lompoc Library - Literacy: Where dreams begin

Literacy: Where dreams begin
Lompoc Record: Sep 8, 2006 by John McReynolds

Ian Vorster/Staff Yolanda Calderon and Dick Clark relax for a few moments Tuesday at the table in the Lompoc Library at which Calderon learned to speak, read and write English. The many hours the two have spent together have resulted in Calderon being able to open her own childcare business.

Today is International Literacy Day, but no pictures of barefoot, poverty-stricken children are necessary.

Visualize instead a young mother at the Lompoc Public Library with a book in one hand and a bottle in the other. Less than five years ago, Yolanda Calderon was that mother.

She and tutor Dick Clark are the superstars of the library's Adult Reading Program.

Since Calderon began the program, she has become a U.S. citizen, passed CPR and first-aid classes, has started her own child-care business, and has begun classes at Allan Hancock College to further her dream of becoming a teacher.

“When I came (from Mexico) I didn't know how to ask for paper or plastic,” Calderon said. “I feel very proud of helping my kids. All my kids' lessons are in English. I understand them. When I have a parent conference they don't have to translate. I don't need help any more. I can do it.”

Clark, a 24-year Air Force veteran, holds three masters' degrees, yet he and Calderon are remarkably similar.

They are both self-starters who began back in the pack.

Clark, 70, is short and trim and prodigiously energetic. He and his wife, Doris, play tennis and ride bikes, on occasion for three hours at a stretch.

A San Gabriel Valley native, he enlisted in the Air Force after a brief and less-than-successful high school experience. Through the service he earned a bachelor's in business from Colorado, then earned those advanced degrees - in electrical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, in systems management from USC, and in business from Golden Gate University at Vandenberg. After active duty he spent 18 years working for Vandenberg contractors as a computer programmer. He taught mathematics at night for Hancock College, but he retired from it all in 1995.

“When I retired I retired from the job, not from life,” Clark said in his characteristically clipped, anything-is-possible-let's-get-on-with-it fashion.

After shopping around for fulfilling volunteer programs, he read an advertisement for the library's reading program in early 1997. It was a perfect fit. “I didn't want to go back to teaching. This is one-on-one and I don't have to test.”

Plus it took place at the library, one of Clark's favorite places.

“I have an affinity for libraries and I wanted to help,” he said with unassailable logic. In addition to the reading program, Clark volunteers to check in books once a week and is now in the third year of a three-year term as president of the library board.

Eight years ago, Yolanda Calderon appeared and her needs meshed seamlessly with yet another of Clark's avocations, teaching himself Spanish. He watches telenovelas and reads in Spanish daily.

Improved Spanish, which he only uses in tutoring as a last resort, is just one of Clark's paybacks for his work. “It puts some structure back in my life,” he said. “I have to get cleaned up. I have to shave. I have to prepare for my class.” Clark has more students than any other volunteer - four. He dedicates eight to 10 hours a week to them.

He takes personal pride in their accomplishments. Three of them took the U.S. citizenship exam and all passed with perfect, 20 of 20, scores. “They make the progress but I had a hand in it.”

And the students appreciate him. Sometimes he receives gifts of lettuce fresh from the field. “He is the foundation for everything I've done,” Calderon said.

She was illiterate in English, but not in Spanish when she immigrated 12 years ago. Despite coming from a family of seven, she had advanced to the second year of university in the provincial capital of Morelia before dropping out for lack of finances.

In Lompoc, Calderon, with the support of her husband Enrique, took the initiative.

Library Literacy Coordinator Christine Chill introduced Clark to Calderon when her son Kevin, now 11, was three. Then Calderon gave birth to Adrian, now 7, and Lisette, 5, but pregnancies were only momentary delays.

“She'd be up here writing and holding a bottle with the other hand,” Clark recalled. “That baby is now 5 years old.”

When Calderon signed up, her immediate objectives were simply to help her son with his homework, to read the mail, and to get a better job, but they soon expanded. Her dream was, and still is, to become a special-education teacher.

“My goal has always been the same. Just that my Mexican qualifications don't apply, so I had to start from the bottom,” she said.

Applying for citizenship was Clark's idea. “I owe it all to him,” she said. “I wasn't interested in it at first, but he told me I could do it. I was afraid, but I did it. His explanations were so good I didn't have to memorize anything.”

Clark prides himself on understanding the challenges faced by students who must juggle families, husbands and jobs along with learning. He shifts weekly meeting times as his students request. He even encourages them to bring their kids.

“I try to make them be a part of it,” he said of the children. “They see their mothers learning and it brings rapport between the kids and me. They give me high fives. It also encourages use of the library.”

Clark invites students to bring anything from home that they might have questions about. Frequently they are notes from school. In Calderon's case they have been questions about an English, or CPR, or first-aid class she was taking concurrently.

Calderon may stand out for her tenacious commitment to her advanced educational goal, but she is not fundamentally different from other reading program students, said coordinator Chill.

“When they come in the program, they see getting a job as a long-term goal. As their literacy improves their self confidence improves also and before long they're filling out job applications. “Eighty percent of the students are women,” Chill said.

Chill's 25 volunteers serve 50 students but 16 more have signed up. Some have been waiting for an entire year. In especially short supply are volunteers who will work at night, the only time many students have available.

She estimates that 20 percent of her students are illiterate in any language.

“The goal is to teach reading and writing to people who speak English, but who may not read it or write it,” she specified.

“The book does the teaching,” said Clark. “You're a guide. You don't have to be a teacher. All you have to have is patience and a willingness to help.”

And maybe hold a bottle.