Ventura Co Library - Ventura Spelling Bee To Aid Adult Literacy

VENTURA SPELLING BEE TO AID ADULT LITERACYDaily News: August 6, 1989 by Carol Bidwell

The Ventura County Literacy Coalition is trying to line up businesses for an unusual spelling bee - and the group hopes the event spells M-O-N-E-Y for adult literacy programs.

Companies are being asked to pay $300 to sponsor a team of two spellers for the Oct. 17 Executive Spelling Bee, said Pat Flanigan, coordinator of both the 2-month-old coalition and the county Library Services Agency's reading program for adults.

This is the first year for the event, which Flanigan called "a lighthearted adaptation of the traditional school spelling bee you either loved or hated as a kid."

Executive Spelling Bee is modeled after a similar event held last year in Santa Paula, in which teams of civic leaders and business representatives tried to outspell each other to raise money for literacy.

As a special gimmick to add a bit of fun - and to raise more money for adult literacy - teams that misspell a word or do not want to try can buy a new word for $100. Or for $100, a team can pass along a particularly difficult word to another team of its choice. That team can either take a whack at spelling the word, or pay $100 to pass it along to another team.

School spelling champions from several communities will also attend, and a team can pass its word along to their area's champ by paying $100, said Flanigan.

Companies that want to sponsor spelling teams can call Flanigan at (805) 652-6294. The event will begin at 7 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Doubletree Hotel, 2055 E. Harbor Blvd.

The evening will also honor volunteer tutors and adult learners in five local learn-to-read programs, Flanigan said.

Since the county's adult literacy program began in 1984, more than 1,500 county residents have been interviewed, tested for reading proficiency and either referred to other community programs or matched with tutors. Volunteers have given more than 15,000 hours of tutoring time, said Flanigan.

Still, the literacy program is reaching only a small number of county residents who cannot read, Flanigan said.

According to state Department of Education figures, an estimated 82,000 or more county residents read below the fifth-grade level, and of those people, nearly 58,000 can't read at all, she said.

"For one reason or another, they just fell through the cracks when they were young," Flanigan said. "Sometimes, they've done a lot of moving around as children, from one school to another . . . or the home didn't have the right atmosphere for learning. Often, the parents couldn't read themselves. Sometimes the parents had learning difficulties themselves."

Some of the adults who cannot read had vision or hearing problems as children that made learning difficult.

"For the most part, they have normal intelligence," she said. "They just didn't get enough attention when they were kids."

There are many reasons adults decide to finally learn to read, Flanigan said, but most of them are job-related. One of the men in the program said recently he chose to enter the program before his boss discovered his inability to read, she said.

"He had been giving things to his secretary, telling her, 'You'll need to know about this. Read it and let me know what you think,' " Flanigan said. ''And she would report back to him, which is how he would know what was in the paper.

"He's been doing this for a long time, but he said he thinks his boss is catching on to the fact that he can't read," Flanigan said.

It takes six to 18 months for adult learners to complete the program, and about 75 percent of those who begin tutoring complete the full course, compared to 45 percent of adult learners nationwide, Flanigan said.

"We get the most motivated people," she said.

Although many of the county's homeless residents are probably in need of tutoring, none of them have enrolled in the program, Flanigan said.

San Diego Public Library - READ San Diego - People with determination and sensitivity - like Conchita Gutierrez - are crucial to teaching the illiterate to Read on!

People with determination and sensitivity - like Conchita Gutierrez
- are crucial to teaching the illiterate to Read on!
Evening Tribune: July 5, 1989 by Greg Joseph
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CONCHITA GUTIERREZ sees learning as the great hope in life, and the ability to read and write as the surest means of fulfilling that hope.

It is an opportunity, she believes, that everyone deserves.

So Gutierrez -- a 63-year-old widow, mother of four and grandmother of one -- knew what she had to do last year when she heard that the San Diego Public Library was launching its READ/San Diego adult literacy program to help people with impaired reading and writing skills.

Gutierrez, a homemaker from University City, went to READ/San Diego headquarters in East San Diego and volunteered to do anything she could to make the program succeed.

That was in June of 1988.

Since then, Gutierrez has spent more than 1,000 hours as a volunteer in the program -- or about five times the amount of time devoted by most volunteers, according to officials -- doing everything from tutoring a young mother several times a week to working in various administrative and clerical capacities at READ/San Diego headquarters.

And she's far from finished. She will become manager of a READ/San Diego center to open in North Park in September, even while continuing with her present duties. All will be on a volunteer basis.

For her efforts, Gutierrez was just honored as the program's volunteer of the year.

In all, 425 volunteers have participated in the program and helped about 350 people, according to Chris McFadden, adult literacy coordinator for READ/San Diego.

. . . Continued
There are 27 million Americans who don't know how to read -- 4 1/2 million functionally illiterate in California and an estimated 350,000 such people in San Diego County.

READ/San Diego is staffed by literacy professionals who oversee volunteer reading tutors, who in turn receive comprehensive training and generally meet their students twice a week for a total of three hours at one of the 32 San Diego city libraries or at a mutually convenient tutoring site.
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San Diego Public Library - READ San Diego - Literacy program spells opportunity R-E-A-D

Literacy program spells opportunity R-E-A-D
San Diego Union: September 7, 1988 by Karla Peterson
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At an age when most people are starting out, 22-year-old Jenifer Marlowe is starting over.

She is newly married, pregnant and living in a new city. And she is finally learning to read.

According to the San Diego County Literacy Network, 350,000 San Diegans have impaired reading and writing skills. They are the functional illiterate, and two months ago, Marlowe was one of them. Now that she's enrolled in the READ/San Diego adult literacy program, Marlowe is looking forward to belonging to a different group.

. . . Continued

READ/San Diego, which is offered through the San Diego Public Library, is the newest addition to the San Diego County Literacy Network's roster of adult learning centers. The grand opening of the Euclid Avenue site is tomorrow, on International Literacy Day, and Marlowe will be there.

. . . Continued

Tutors at the READ center encourage students to develop their own goals, which can be as simple as getting a driver's licence, or as complicated as earning a high-school equivalency diploma. Since opening in June, the center has trained 62 volunteer tutors and matched up 50 tutor-student pairs. By holding the official grand opening on International Literacy Day, the people at READ hope to alert even more students and volunteers to the importance of the written word.

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National City Library - West has high stake in finding cure for illiteracy

West has high stake in finding cure for illiteracy
San Diego Union: September 29, 1985 by Richard Louv
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IS AMERICA, particularly the West, endangered by illiteracy?

Jonathan Kozol thinks so. A mild-mannered Boston writer and grade-school teacher, Kozol has become the leader of a national campaign against illiteracy. According to his statistics, one out of three Americans cannot effectively read a newspaper, or a housing contract, or the sedative warnings on non-prescription drugs. Some 60 million Americans cannot read the Bible or the Constitution.

. . . Continued
According to Kozol's figures, approximately 30 million Americans read at the fourth-grade level or below, and another 30 million are "functionally illiterate," reading between the fifth- and eighth-grade levels.

Kozol has drawn fire from some conservatives who contend he uses inflated figures. Nonetheless, President Reagan's former secretary of education, Terrel Bell, targeted 27 million Americans as hard-core illiterates -- people who read at or below an eighth-grade level. That corresponds roughly to Kozol's figures. Whatever the numbers, illiteracy is becoming a hot political topic.

. . . Continued
Two years ago, the California state library began an ambitious literacy program, largely because of the leadership of Gary Strong, the system's director. "He's an unusual man," says Kozol. "He likes books. That in itself sets him almost alone among high-ranking officials." Strong has assembled a broad-based coalition of concerned groups. These include business people, community activists, and such traditional volunteer literacy programs as the Laubach Literary Council and Literacy Volunteers of America.

"Using libraries instead of schools as the main focus of the campaign is a stroke of genius," says Kozol. "Libraries are one of the few institutions in America that nobody hates.

. . . Continued
California's campaign is the most ambitious state program in the United States. But as pioneering as the 2-year-old effort is, it's not enough. Of the 5 million illiterate Californians, only 5,000 to 10,000 people are being reached. The state's literacy campaign spends less than $3 million per year on the entire program -- about 50 cents a year on each illiterate.

LOCAL EFFORTS are a mixed bag. The Laubauch organization and Literacy Volunteers of America have been toiling for years here. But San Diego's City Council has failed to finance a formal literacy program in the city library system. Nor does the city library participate in the state's library literacy campaign. That fact puzzles Carlos Batara, director of the National City Public Library's Project Read -- which has challenged every city in the county and the nation to a race toward literacy.

. . . Continued
The county library system's Project SURE (Strongly United for Reading), a year-and-a-half old, has recruited 97 volunteer tutors. Director Margaret Trivison estimates that there are "400,000 adult illiterates in San Diego County, people reading at or below the fifth-grade level."

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National City Library - California State Librarian Gary Strong at Luncheon

Librarian at luncheon
San Diego Union: August 13, 1985

California State Librarian Gary Strong will speak at a noon luncheon sponsored by PROJECT READ, the National City Public Libraries adult literacy program.

Strong will describe statewide efforts to enlist libraries in a new campaign to increase the adult literacy rate in California. Currently, 45 libraries, including National City's, are receiving state funds to develop and mobilize community resources to expand reading services to adults.

"The point of the campaign is to help adults who cannot read out of their isolation and enable them to succeed," Strong said. "Libraries are natural agencies for this."

Strong will speak at Palmer Way Elementary School, 2900 Palmer St. His talk is part of a day-long conference at the school. The conference is sponsored by PROJECT READ.

Millions bear the burdens of illiteracy

Millions bear the burdens of illiteracy:
Non-readers face a harsh sentence in America today
Evening Tribune: November 27, 1984 by Scott LaFee
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TWENTY-SIX million Americans -- a number equal to the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- could not read this sentence.

The same number -- one of every five American adults -- cannot write a check or read the label on a soup can. And each year, the number grows as nearly a million students drop out of high school.

In San Diego County, the figures don't read any better. As many as 400,000 residents may be reading below the fifth-grade level or may be unable to read and write well enough to function smoothly in society.

The statistics of illiteracy and its costs to the nation are staggering. Experts estimate illiteracy drains the economy of $6 billion a year in unemployment and welfare benefits, and of $237 billion a year in unrealized earnings.

Officials at Project Sure, a consortium of 27 adult-literacy projects throughout California, call the people "functional illiterates."

Functional illiteracy is not a total inability to read or write. The United States boasts an official literacy rate of 99 percent, but millions of Americans are still functionally illiterate.

Functional illiteracy must be judged in a social context. A lettuce farmer in the Imperial Valley, for instance, may be able to read a bill of sale but not a newspaper.

. . . Continued
Removing the stigma and reaching the illiterate is the goal of national organizations like Laubach Literacy Action and Literacy Volunteers of America, and local programs like the Tri-City Literacy Coalition which serves Vista, Oceanside and Carlsbad.

. . . Continued
According to Project Sure statistics, one-third of the county's 96,500 welfare recipients are high school dropouts. Nine percent have less than a ninth-grade education.

Twenty percent of the 1,800 people a day who apply for driver's licenses in the county must retake the written test, primarily due to reading problems. One-third of the 14,500 participants in the Area Agency on Aging nutritional program for senior citizens may be functionally illiterate.

Few dispute that illiteracy has an adverse, if indirect and hard-to-measure, effect on crime, lifestyles and governmental costs.

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