The Gift of Reading

Books make great gifts for many.

But there are 133,000 adults in Ventura County who can’t read above a fifth-grade level. Considered functionally illiterate, these people can’t read menus, let alone curl up with a favorite mystery.

The statistics come from Judy Goldberg, the only paid staff member of the Laubach Literacy Program of Ventura County.

“People who can’t read and write have learned to fake it--even professionals,” Goldberg said. “They will look at a menu and say, ‘You order for me--I’ll just have what you’re having. So people don’t come forth easily, but once they do, they are really committed.”

Goldberg is at the office at 141 South A St. three days a week. She is paid for 15 hours, but when you work for a nonprofit organization, you work for love and not for money. Funding for the program comes from United Way, grants and private donations.

“Our greatest need is for more tutors,” Goldberg said. “Students find us--they come out of the woodwork.” Free services are available to any Ventura County resident 18 years old or older, either English-speaking or non-English speaking. Goldberg can be reached at 385-9584.

Tutor training for the literacy program involves one full Saturday; workshops for English as a Second Language tutors total 18 hours. Tutors make a six-month commitment to give three hours a week. Teaching locations vary from the tutor’s home to a library.

Longtime tutor Miriam Fraser, 84, meets her 50-year-old student at the Oxnard Library. Fraser travels from her Ventura home once a week for the sessions. She described her student as an artistically gifted, 10th-grade high school dropout with children who are college graduates. His wife helps with banking and the other duties most of us take for granted.

“By the time they are adults, students are sure that they can’t learn to read because they have been called slow or stupid and can’t get jobs because a simple test will throw them,” Fraser said. “My student has classic problems of dyslexia. He hates being labeled illiterate because it sounds so much like illegitimate.”

Fraser has high praise for the Laubach system of teaching developed in the early 1930s by Frank Laubach, a missionary and educator working in the Philippines. He devised a simple method of memory aids so people could read in their own language. Later, he developed the system used today in teaching literacy on an international level.

According to Fraser, legend has it that Laubach was working with a tribe when the depression hit and funding from the United States was shut off. That didn’t set well with the chief, she said.

“He threatened to kill anyone who didn’t keep on teaching, so Laubach said that if each one would teach one, he’d be willing to go on with the program,” she said.

Since that time, Laubach’s “Each One Teach One” method has helped adults read, write and understand English, according to Goldberg. Students work through four levels of books until they reach the equivalent of fifth-grade readers. Sessions are free, but students are asked to pay for their books, if they can, because those who do are often more committed to the program, she said.

Other free programs are available through the Adult Literacy Program at the Ventura County Library Services Agency. Hedy Miller, program manager and literacy coordinator, works out of Ventura at 196 S. Fir St., Suite 100, 641-4452.

Miller listed program sites in Simi Valley, Moorpark, Camarillo, Port Hueneme, Ventura, Saticoy, the Todd Road jail, the women’s jail at the honor farm and the California Youth Authority.

“Our mandate is to help [English-speakers] improve their literacy,” Miller said. “Fifty percent of the people we serve do not speak English as their first language, but they do speak some English. That’s what differentiates us from the Laubach program--we cannot take people who speak no English.”

The program is free to students ages 18 and up, she said. Tutors agree to a six-month commitment for two to three hours a week. Tutors usually meet in a room staffed by a paid trained coordinator--many are teachers themselves who come in the evening. Success stories flow out of these programs.

One example near to Miller’s heart is a workplace program at Zebra Technology in Camarillo.

“We train English-speaking employees at Zebra to tutor production line staff who need to improve their literacy levels,” she said. “The company offers the time and the place for both students and tutors to work together during the day. We provide the materials, coaching, training and testing. This is small group tutoring or one-on-one.”

Other businesses interested in adopting this program can phone her.

Finally, Project Understanding, 43 E. Vince St., in Ventura, offers tutoring programs for children under 18. Call 652-1326 for more information.

If you gave a book to someone lately, why not give your time to one of these literacy programs as well. To borrow a phrase, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

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Information about book signings, writers groups and publishing events can be e-mailed to anns40@aol.com or faxed to 647-5846.