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Teaching Johnny’s Daddy to Read

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TIMES EDUCATION WRITER

Programs aimed at combating illiteracy among adults have proliferated rapidly in the last five or six years. They have been boosted by a growing awareness that many Americans do not possess enough reading, writing or other basic skills to function on the job, help their children with schoolwork or carry out the countless other tasks required to get along in a complex, technologically oriented society.

Literacy experts estimate that about one in five adult Americans are functionally illiterate; some put the number at one in three because of the higher level of competency required to get by today.

California Literacy, the nation’s largest and oldest statewide volunteer agency in the field, estimates that 3.1 million of the state’s residents are functionally illiterate. The agency oversees 100 programs in 250 literacy centers throughout California, all staffed by volunteer tutors. In addition, many public libraries offer adult literacy programs, and increasing numbers of employers are establishing them for their own workers or for the community at large.

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Literacy programs also are a staple of many community adult schools run by school districts.

Deborah Kerr, 32, has been teaching for three years in a program run by the adult school office of the Baldwin Park Unified School District. In September, the U.S. Department of Education cited it for “outstanding adult education and literacy programs.” Kerr recently served on a state task force on adult education.

Q: What brings people to your class?

A: Some of them come because they are required to by a welfare or other program. But most of them--I’d say 75%--are here voluntarily. Some have a very specific goal: They want to get (the equivalent of a high school diploma) or they want to qualify for some vocational training or a better job. Others want to be able to read to their kids or help them with their schoolwork.

Q: How does your class operate?

A: It is different for every student. When students come to us, they are tested to determine their level of skills. We design individualized programs for them and they work at their own rate, and they all put in varying amounts of time each week. My morning classes are large--120 are enrolled and I might have 40 to 60 students on any given day. The afternoons are much quieter--anywhere from four or five students up to 25 on any given day. Students come whenever they can.

Q: How long do they stay with the program?

A: Generally, about six months, but that varies a lot, and it depends on the reason the person came in in the first place. If someone came for a particular skill and we focus just on that, he may master it in three weeks and leave. We’ve had a few students who have stayed over a year--usually those at very low reading levels--and made wonderful progress. Some came in reading at first- or second-grade level and within a year and a half are now preparing for the GED (General Equivalency Diploma, for high school dropouts).

Q: Is the emphasis primarily on reading?

A: Our program is “life skills” based, so it goes beyond reading skills. Some people can read little or nothing at all when they come to us; others can read fairly well, or at least enough to get by, but they cannot fill out an application for insurance or manage a checking account. We work on that if that’s what they need. We also work a lot on writing. And some of our students have very poor listening skills. So we work on whatever things they need to improve in order to be able to function as an adult.

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Q: With such individualized programs, I gather there is not much interaction among the students?

A: There is lots of interaction. The students are very supportive of each other; they want to help each other. Somebody might be having a problem with something they’re working on, and I might be busy with someone else at the moment. But the person sitting next to her might be good in that particular area, so she asks him and they work it out together. It’s a very cooperative, friendly atmosphere.

Q: Your students work a lot with computers. How hard was it for them to get used to using them?

A: When we first got our computers, there was a lot of anxiety. Nobody wanted to touch them. It was technology , and people were saying, “No way, I’m not touching that thing.” But in the orientation the company gave us, we picked three students to be computer aides, and they learned everything right along with the instructors. They then became the trainers of the other students, and within three days everyone in the class was completely comfortable using the computers. Having other students teach them really lowered the anxiety level.

Q: Is anxiety level a problem for your students in general?

A: One of the most difficult problems for adults going back to school is that they have a lot of anxiety about it. School was a bad experience for them as kids. Or they learned coping skills that enabled them to get by, but they were in constant fear of being found out. On their first day, the counselor walks them into my class so they don’t change their minds on the way from the office. I’ve had people shake and cry on the first day, and I’ve got to make them feel comfortable right away or they won’t come back.

Q: How do you go about doing that?

A: We try to create a very nurturing atmosphere. The other students are a big part of that. Many of our new students are brought in by friends who are already in class. They become a support group for each other. Within a very short time, the new students start to relax and begin to learn.

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Q: How do you measure progress?

A: We have standardized tests that we use when students first come in, then they are retested about twice a year. The computer also gives us a report on a student whenever we want it, and we usually do that about once a week so we can chart the student’s growth. The students can see their own progress, and they feel better about themselves.

Q: What has surprised you most about this job?

A: All the heart-wrenching stories. And I was amazed at how brilliant some of these students are, how they managed to get along for so long and hide the fact that they couldn’t read. We have one man in his 20s who could not read at all, but he could memorize everything just from hearing it. He had a wonderful vocabulary, but he could not recognize the words on paper. It’s been 10 months now, and he’s reading at about third-grade level; that’s really exciting.

Q: How are people able to hide their illiteracy from prospective employers or others?

A: There are lots of ways. One common thing is to pretend to have just lost your glasses and ask to take the application home. I had one man who came in at 57 years old. He had been injured on the job and came in for retraining for a different kind of work. But he couldn’t read, so he came to me, and he told me all the ways he had kept his secret, how he had gone through life without being able to read. His favorite trick was whenever he knew he would have to fill out a job application or some other form, he would wrap an Ace bandage around his right wrist and say, “You know, I just hurt my hand. Could you fill that out for me?”

I could picture him doing that over and over throughout his life, and it just touched me.

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