Los Angeles Public Library - ENDING ADULT ILLITERACY SIMPLE AS TEACHING PEOPLE HOW TO READ

ENDING ADULT ILLITERACY SIMPLE AS TEACHING PEOPLE HOW TO READDaily News: May 12, 1991 by Shel Erlich, Guest Columnist

It bothers me. It's been bothering me for years. Shame on us! As a supposedly advanced and educated country, shouldn't we be making greater progress ending our national problem of illiteracy? It can't be as difficult as ending homelessness, which always seems to come down to spending money. Ending adult illiteracy merely requires teaching people how to read, or how to read better.

The subject attacked my conscience again just recently as I sat in a crowded airport lounge waiting for a flight. I glanced up from my magazine. About half the people in view are either talking with someone or just waiting, alone with their thoughts. The other half were busily engaged in something most of us take for granted - reading.

I saw paperbacks and hardbacks, newspapers, a miscellany of magazines, textbooks, brochures, comics, airline schedules, fan-folded computer print- outs and the silvery screens of laptop word processors.

These items were put away momentarily while we shuffled aboard the plane, stowed our belongings and belted ourselves in. But it wasn't long - some people didn't even wait until the plane took off - before the reading materials were taken out again, along with the newly discovered in-flight magazines and the emergency information cards. (I was sitting right next to the over-wing exit window, so I thought I should at least read the instructions about what I might have to do.) A few folks even smiled, somewhat grimly, over the words on the airsickness bag. The point is - a lot of people were reading.

For many years, I had heard the numbers: one out of five adults in this country either can't read at all or have some difficulty with printed words that go much beyond a simple STOP sign, the MEN and WOMEN on restroom doors or other very elementary instructions, signs or labels. Sometimes, illiterate persons memorize these bits of information as symbols, rather than read them as words. Non-readers often have very good memories - better than you and I. They have to; it's a matter of daily survival.

Stereotypical ideas of what an illiterate must "look like" are false; in fact, they look and usually act exactly like the rest of us. Some appear to be - and often are - quite successful in their businesses or occupations, their family relationships and other personal interests and hobbies. The greatest "achievement" for many of them, however, is how well they have hidden their illiteracy from their friends, their neighbors, their co-workers.

Could the well-dressed fiftyish woman in the aisle seat in my row on the plane be one of these "functional illiterates"? Maybe the tall, clean-cut young man carrying the athletic bag, or the elderly gentleman with bifocals who looked like a law school professor? None of them had been reading or speaking with anyone. Yet, it hadn't seemed quite appropriate to go up to one of them and say, "By the way, can you read?"

Late last summer, feeling somewhat guilty about having procrastinated for so long, I signed up to be a volunteer reading tutor through the adult literacy project offered by the Los Angeles Public Library. Libraries, with their endless shelves of reading matter on every imaginable subject, have given me countless hours of knowledge, information and enjoyment for as long as I can remember. But to a non-reader, a library must represent a fearsome and foreign place, perhaps as frustrating and uncomfortable an environment as a high-tech biological research lab would be to me.

My personal motivation in becoming a tutor was to be able to open those library doors, to open the covers of those books, to someone - to anyone - who couldn't read. I wanted to share the pleasures I had enjoyed for so long.

Due to a previously planned vacation last fall, I missed my first chance at the 12-hour training program. The next available program began in March, and I made sure I was there. Those three Saturday sessions were bracketed, perhaps only coincidentally, around Literacy Awareness Week, March 10-16, adding a sense of purpose for the 35 earnest volunteers in our group.

My "student" and I met for the first time in late March. I had looked forward to that moment with anticipation and, yes, some nervousness - like ''meeting a blind date," as one of our instructors put it. I had no idea at what reading level he had entered the program; I only knew that he had - somewhat courageously - asked for help.

Dan (not his real name) is a family man in his late forties (exactly my age). His present reading skills hover around the second- or third-grade level, according to my own untrained assessment. He dropped out of a San Fernando Valley junior high school in the eighth-grade, frustrated at his inability to keep up, but Dan says he's never been without a job. He now operates construction equipment. He is outgoing and speaks quite well; few would be aware of his hidden handicap.

We have met six times, and I am as amazed at his enthusiasm for learning as he is at how well he is doing. "I can't believe I just read that!" is his very frequent exclamation.

As we work together, I have to remind myself that the reasons many adult illiterates want to learn to read may be somewhat more urgent or practical than being able to enjoy a volume of William Shakespeare or John Steinbeck or Shel Silverstein. These new readers-to-be want to qualify for a job or get the promotion that's been eluding them for years, to write a check in the supermarket, to get the gist of local and national news from the newspaper or to read to their young children.

When the time is right - it could be three months or six months, it could be longer - I'll be at least as excited as Dan when we go out for lunch or dinner to celebrate the progress he has made, however large or small. And when he confidently picks up the printed menu and orders something other than ''whatever he's having," we'll both feel pretty damn good!

San Diego Public Library - READ San Diego - New library to be home for READ project

New library to be home for READ project
Evening Tribune: December 28, 1991 by Claude Walbert

A branch library to be constructed in Southeast San Diego will become a center of community activity as well as home of the READ/San Diego adult literacy project, said San Diego's head librarian.

It will be built on Market Street between 50th and 51st streets in Valencia Park and will house 50,000 books and periodicals.

Library Director Bill Sannwald said the 15,000-square-foot library was designed by Hillcrest architect Manuel Oncina to blend into the 8-acre site while leaving space for trees and paths.

The California Library Construction and Renovation Board awarded $3 million to the Valencia Park project Dec. 19 after plans for the library weathered a stiff state competition. The money comes from the Proposition 85 bond act.

Under terms of the grant, one of 14 awarded to 52 applicants, 35 percent of the construction costs must be paid by the applicant, and the new libraries must remain in operation for 20 years.

The Valencia Park branch will share its space with the literacy project, allowing it to move from its cramped Oak Park headquarters, Sannwald said.

Chris McFadden, adult literacy coordinator, said READ/San Diego will have twice the space now available in its 1,500-square-foot headquarters at 1535 Euclid Ave.

Begun in 1988, the literacy program has helped 1,500 people improve their reading skills, McFadden said. Most of those are adults, but anyone at least 16 years old who doesn't plan on returning to school is eligible for aid in gaining literacy.

The Euclid Avenue headquarters has four paid staff members and 45 volunteers in addition to the program's own library of books and records. It also has seven computers used to teach reading. That number is expected to grow to 18 after moving to the new headquarters, McFadden said.

Tutor training also will take place in the new headquarters, as will tutoring of adults.

There is no firm construction schedule for the library, said Terry Bednarzyk, a spokesman for Councilman George Stevens, in whose district the new branch will be built.

The possibility of adding 5,000 square feet to the library for a cultural center will be considered early next year, Bednarzyk said, with final decisions on construction details to follow.

San Diego Public Library - READ San Diego - M.A., but he couldn't read 'til now

M.A., but he couldn't read 'til now
San Diego Union: June 30, 1990 by Angela Lau

Steve Pilling had made up his mind he was going to walk through the door of Carson Elementary School in Linda Vista, but then he balked.

"I was scared to death," he recalls.

Standing 6 feet, 2 inches tall and looking spiffy in suit and tie, he was faced with this decision -- continue to hide his inability to read complex words, or go into the grade school to learn the skill -- at the age of 30.

Pilling was, after all, the owner of a flourishing telecommunications consulting business in Tierrasanta and had a master's degree in business administration.

"That was the hardest door to cross," Pilling said at a READ/San Diego ceremony yesterday in which he was honored as the best student of the year by the adult literacy program.

Pilling hesitated 20 minutes, but eventually entered the school and met his first tutor.

Today, Pilling -- who often had asked his wife to write business proposals for him -- can read this story about himself, whereas before, he relied on radio and television news to stay informed.

"I never believed I could do this," Pilling said. "I was afraid my clients would drop me as their consultant when they learned I couldn't read. But instead, they applauded me in a meeting when they heard about it.

"I'm not embarrassed about it anymore. And I hope those who can't read will come out of the closet."

Pilling is a "classic example" of the failure of the education system, said one of his tutors, Diane Lin.

He slipped through Millikin University in Decatur, Ill., graduating with a 3.0 grade-point average there, and an MBA program at National University in San Diego, graduating from there with a 3.5 average. He did so by avoiding teachers and professors who test students with essay questions, asking fellow students for help and starting to research term papers "way ahead of time" to make up for his slowness.

"The program's done so much for his self-confidence," said Pilling's wife, Patti. "I'm so grateful."

Also honored at yesterday's ceremony, which marked the second anniversary of READ/San Diego, was Tutor of the Year Milton Dudeck, a 70-year-old retired engineer; and Volunteer of the Year Conchita Gutierrez, a 64-year-old homemaker.

Glendale Library :: Expansion of Literacy Aid Sought

EXPANSION OF LITERACY AID SOUGHT -
GLENDALE PROGRAM WOULD SERVE PARENTS
Daily News: May 25, 1990 by Laurence Darmiento

In an effort to break what experts say can be a cycle of illiteracy, Glendale officials said Thursday they will try to expand Glendale's adult literacy program to target students who have young children.

City library officials are seeking an $18,500 grant from the California State Library so they can teach parents in the program how to encourage their children to read, said Georganna Ahlfors, coordinator of the adult reading program.

"Studies have found most people who have a reading problem . . . don't have a reading ethic, because their families don't value that," Ahlfors said. ''We are trying to intervene in childhood, so that their children don't have the same problem."

The program would target parents with children five years or younger, she said. It would try to teach the parents how to read to their children, how to pick out books for them and, more generally, how reading can be pleasurable.

"We're doing a little of everything," she said.

At its Tuesday meeting, the City Council unanimously approved a request by Library Director Susan Curzon to apply for the grant.

Ahlfors said the program would include classes to teach them how to read to their children and workshops aimed at both parents and children. In addition, professional storytellers would be hired to ply their craft, demonstrating to parents how to tell an entertaining story while showing children the value of storytelling.

Ahlfors said the $18,500 would pay for the salary of a part-time program coordinator for one year, along with the fees charged by the storytellers and other incidental expenses. She said it also includes the cost of buying up to six children's books for each family.

"We want them to start their own libraries," she said.

The three-year-old literacy program currently serves 110 adults, 31 of whom have children five years old or younger, according to a report prepared by Curzon for Tuesday's council meeting. Volunteer tutors serve each of the adults.

Ahlfors said the decision to apply for the state funds was not made earlier than this year because library officials have been concentrating their efforts on expanding the original program, which served 35 adults last January.

"Our program has reached enough maturity that we can branch off," she said.

If the state library approves the grant, the program would start sometime later this year, according to Curzon..

Ahlfors said she hopes that even when the grant runs out the program will continue through volunteer efforts. But she said it would be difficult to start such a program without a paid coordinator.

Carlsbad Library - He now knows the ABCs of life - Teacher/businessman overcomes his illiteracy

He now knows the ABCs of life
Teacher/businessman overcomes his illiteracy
Evening Tribune: May 18, 1990 by Tom Cushman

SINCE being profiled in the sports pages of a newspaper presumes some affiliation with athletics, this much can be said for John Corcoran. A scholarship basketball player at Texas Western (now UTEP) in the late '50s, John is remembered on that campus both for on-court achievement and the fact that his roommate was Charlie Brown, the first black ever to dribble for a major university in the South.

That John is remembered for his academic record is unlikely. He did leave El Paso with a degree -- no stock accomplishment for varsity athletes, then or now.

The remainder of John Corcoran's classroom data is standard for any successful educator. There are elementary and high school diplomas plus graduate work, most of the latter having been done at San Diego State.

Once certified, Corcoran would teach in high schools of the Carlsbad-Oceanside community for 18 years. Concurrent with that service was a gradual move into real estate acquisition and development; this eventually would mushroom into a permanent occupation. At present, Corcoran's company (Brebon) is completing construction of Fire Mountain Estates, an arrangement of $300,000-plus homes in Oceanside's southern corridor.

There was one departure from the norm. While doing all of the above, John Corcoran could neither read nor write. John was what is known as a functional illiterate.

The Corcoran story is offered as a companion to Sunday's Trib 10, which is about running and walking and festivaling, but -- in a less carefree sense -- is a vehicle intended to increase public awareness of a lingering national disgrace.

Some 42 years after entering our public school system, John Corcoran -- through the resources of an Adult Literacy Program at the Carlsbad Library -- finally learned to read.

One of the first things he learned from reading was that his dilemma was not unique. Illiteracy is a trap in which 20 percent of the U.S. population is snared. "Every spring, a million youngsters graduate from high school with reading skills that are eighth grade or below," Corcoran was saying on a recent afternoon.

John was one of the "belows." He estimates that his reading level during college was that of a second grader.

Level of intellect was not the problem. To accomplish what John Corcoran has obviously requires a superior mind.

Aptitude for reading did not suddenly arrive in the middle of the night.

Like so many others, John Corcoran was victimized by physical malfunctions and a system that tends to tolerate only the normal.

That he didn't begin talking until age 3 should have been a signal. There was an auditory difficulty (John can't hear certain letters). There is some dyslexia. None of this had been diagnosed, however, when John took a seat in the first grade.

"Back then, a child who picked up a fork with his left hand might have that arm tied behind him to force use of the right," Corcoran says. "Mind-set was that rigid.

"People like myself are not going to learn the traditional way. We're capable of the same things, but we're wired differently."

When John had early difficulty with certain reading fundamentals, he was placed in what he refers to as "the dumb row," there to remain throughout his elementary schooling.

"I didn't feel dumb," he says, "but over a period of time the system persuaded me that my brain couldn't be taught to read. This can be devastating to a person's self-esteem.

"We learn by being honest about what we don't know. When it's suggested up front that you're dumb, honesty is discouraged."

By the time he reached junior high, John Corcoran had decided his only choice was to live with illiteracy and disguise it as best he could. His degree of success is in itself an indictment of the educational process that abused him.

"I couldn't learn our word system," he says, "but the school system was easy to figure. It's a wide-open barn door. If you insist on attending, you'll graduate. "How? When you're dealing with a stacked deck, what you do is mark some cards."

While in high school, John dated the valedictorian. Another girlfriend was a whiz in accounting. From both, plus other classmates, John mined information. No one even suspected the reason. By the time he entered college, John had developed math skills. Symbols, he could read.

Since his only means of communication was oral, he did well in classes where the verbal was emphasized. He scheduled more courses than needed; those with testing procedures that emphasized reading and writing he then dropped.

After speaking recently at a literacy fund-raiser in Baton Rouge, La., John was approached by a college professor who huffed, "You'd never have gotten through one of my classes."

Said John: "I'd never have taken one."

When necessary, John cheated. "Whatever it took," he now says. "By my junior year at Western, I knew I would get my degree.

"Graduate school actually was easier. There is less structure."

By most accounts, John became an above-average high school teacher. He limited his course range, concentrating on those in which verbal communication would suffice. Any necessary reading or secretarial work was assigned to students.

"Many of the things a good teacher should do, I was forced to do. I always was early for my classes, always was willing to spend extra time with the kids. That way I could pick their brains.

"We taught each other."

John Corcoran had been gone from the classroom for several years when he finally made public his illiteracy. He was by then a success in the field of residential development; still, a sense of inadequacy was his daily companion.

"Literate society has no idea what the inability to read and write is like," he was saying the other day. "You're running on fumes all the time."

Entering the Carlsbad Library program at age 48, John was tutored by a retired lady named Eleanor, age 65. "She wasn't an educator by trade," John says, "but she became the second-grade teacher I never had.

"For the first 30 days, I thought it was going to be the same disappointment all over again. Eleanor wouldn't give up, though, so neither did I. And, one day she pulled the switch. The dark room I'd been living in all those years suddenly was filled with light."

John Corcoran smiles. The sense of accomplishment runs deep, as well it should.

"It's hard work to teach people like me," he says. "The good news is that it can be done."

Ventura Co Library - Officials Seek Federal Grant for Adult Reading Programs

OFFICIALS SEEK FEDERAL GRANT FOR ADULT READING PROGRAMSDaily News: November 9, 1989 by Carol Bidwell

Adults who read at lower-grade levels would benefit from a $25,000 federal grant Ventura County library officials want to augment adult reading programs.

The Board of Supervisors has approved applying for the money from the U.S. Department of Education but it won't know until June 1990 if its programs are selected for funding, said Pat Flanigan, coordinator of the county Library Services Agency's adult literacy program.

"It takes a long time," Flanigan said. "They have to read through grant applications from all over the United States. We have to compete with them, and we're never sure we're going to get what we ask for."

The grant would be used, in part, to set up a new adult reading center at Oxnard Adult School facilities at the Camarillo Airport and to expand use of the Adult School's reading lab in Oxnard, Flanigan said.

Some money will go to buy easy-reading books that appeal to adult interests, and increase training for volunteer reading tutors, according to the grant application.

While earlier local programs have targeted people who cannot read at all, the county now is trying to find people who can read, but only at a low grade level, Flanigan said.

"We're discovering that there are many people who have some basic education, but it's just not enough to meet the goals - social or professional - that they've set for themselves," she said.

Often, such people had to drop out of school at an early age, or suffered learning disabilities that prevented them from progressing past basic reading levels, she 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, Flanigan said.

People who have basic reading skills are easier to reach than non-readers
because they can read newspaper articles and advertisements geared to reach them, and because "they don't feel as stigmatized as people who don't read at all," she said.

Flanigan said that it is hard to convince non-readers to participate in the reading program because they are embarrassed to admit they can't read.

But many lower-level readers are often eager to increase their skill.

The county has some books for adult readers and plans to spend a recent $5,000 gift from Bank of A. Levy and much of the $3,500 raised during a fund- raising spelling bee in October on new purchases, Flanigan said.

In the early days of adult literacy programs, available books catered to elementary school-aged children, but since a national push began to teach illiterate adults to read, publishers have been turning out more books on adult subject matter, she said.

"We have more adult materials available now than we ever had," she 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 donated more than 15,000 hours of tutoring time, she said.

Glendale Library :: Joins Reading Improvement Effort

LIBRARY IN GLENDALE JOINS READING-IMPROVEMENT EFFORTDaily News: October 22, 1989 by Denise Haddix-Niemiec

The Glendale Public Library Adult Reading Program and 45 other libraries have pooled their financial resources to fund two public-service announcements aimed at people who want to improve their reading.

The Glendale program contributed $500 in California Adult Literacy Campaign funds to $14,000 gathered to produce 30- and 15-second television commercials set to be broadcast on independent and national stations statewide sometime this month, said Georganna Ahlfors, coordinator of Glendale's tutor service.

"About one-third of the people in California need reading-and-writing help," Ahlfors said. "It is the (people with reading problems) that we need to reach because they don't read the newspaper and they don't read billboards or signs, so we need to reach them in a different way."

Bea Lewis, manager of public service for television station KNBC, said the station received their tapes of the commercials this week.

If the messages are cleared for air time, the spots could be broadcast on Channel 4 within two weeks, Lewis said.

Ahlfors said there are always tutors volunteering, but the ratio is 200 prospective teachers to 100 students.

This disparity prompted the Glendale Library System to spend part of their $79,000 annual operating budget on the promotion that is geared to finding readers who need help, she said.

The Santa Barbara-based Bradley Mansfield Agency and Los Angeles director Daniel Berkowitz developed the concept for the commercials which depict black- and-white images of adults who have reading problems and its effect on their job and family situations.

The final color segment shows the learners getting help in a library setting.

Glendale officials hope that the commercials will expand awareness of their program's offerings because the state library system plans to start phasing out the funding.