Literacy can be helped through adult programs
It’s been 10 years since a comprehensive national study by
the U.S. Department of Education assessed the literacy and English-language
comprehension of Americans, and the results still hang over Imperial County.
At that time, Imperial County was determined to be the most
illiterate county in the most illiterate state in the country. With 23 percent
of all adult Californians unable to pass a national survey testing their
ability to understand a simple paragraph of English-language text, those
results were compounded by the knowledge that 41 percent of all Imperial County
adults were even more troubled in that regard.
English literacy has long been a problem in Imperial
County, with numerous factors contributing to dismal rates, including
demographics and a reliance of speaking Spanish despite some non-English
speakers having lived here all their lives. Socioeconomics also have played a
role, or vice versa, almost like that classic chicken-and-egg theory.
And still, finding the Rosetta Stone that cracks that code
of English literacy has been difficult to come by, especially as programs meant
to teach adults to read, including publicly funded city and county programs and
night schools struggle to maintain services and funding.
The city of El Centro is gearing up to start its first book
club aimed at helping enhance literacy through reading discussion, but in its
true sense, it’s not a literacy program. Still, it’s a vital tool in the
ongoing battle to overcome that 41 percent, the only “current” statistics by
which the county and the state can set its compass today.
That said, we are fortunate to have an adult literacy program
functioning in the Valley again — Libraries Empower Adults to Read Now! Imperial Valley,
or LEARN IV. That program is an extension of the Imperial County Free Library
System, and it works in conjunction with the city of El Centro, and others, to
teach adults to read through individualized coaching. READ MORE !
