| Show Its International literacy Year I A I I! i1 Mr Riteirt wcis itftwceful a tters 27 million Illiteracy connects to all sorts of problems ranging from poverty to relations with spouses and children to the simple inability to fill out a request for a fishing license Several nonprofit organizations develop and establish programs to overcome illiteracy They also train volunteers to tutor adults and young people Two leading organsynit7o1 izations are Literacy Volunteers of America and Laubach t4 I) Literacy Action both based in Syracuse NY And the First Lady heads The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy which identifies successful programs awards grants and supports training for teachers an16113'Pert In addition many newspapers across the country support literacy programs In 1988 more than half the Fortune 500 companies offered literacy programs to their employees The most important thing to recognize as these programs teach us is that the person we are talking Jt ' Person about might very well be living right next door And believe that by helping him or her we help ourselves Much also is being done in public libraries across the to leccm country to awaken the joys of reading for individuals like Joseph Rivera In Harrisburg recently I visited the "Propelling Reading" program developed by the Dauphin County Pa library system This is clearly one of America's outstandare "propelled" into a ing models of how love of books and reading aikt Richard A Bowra director of the Dauphin N County library system noted that every first-graftd r°'N classroom in the program contains a shelf of specially selected books and that teachers parents older students and school library staffers read N) s aloud to the every day ' "We've found that our vital link to our pr: o' 110 t2IAa gram's success is the immediate presence of the books in the classrooms" said Bowra "Also we ocio Eii5 publish tips for parents about new books and 1 we have family-readin- g nights" The program has achieved such success he said that one of the nine branches has increased in use seven times since it was built in 1976 "Mainly it has worked so well because our raillIONE program fits into an ordinary elementary school's Alex Haley found in Joseph Rivera—at right with his wife Angela curriculum and because it's fun for the kids parents teachers—especially because the kids feel and daughter Maria—a man who managed totem his rde around their reading was their idea" ' This is International Literacy Year and next Saturday The coincidence struck me as remarkable since Another major success is in Fairfax County Va whose is International Literacy Day All across America newsfirst library was a bookmobile that roamed the streets in PARADE had just asked me to write an article about 1939 That system today has 22 branches a $197 milpapers will be publishing articles focusing attention the critical nationwide need for a higher level of literacy and reading The obviously capable Mr Rivera was an lion budget for 1991 and plans to build orexpand 11 libraron the problem of illiteracy in America and around ies In some young people's departments the libraries immediate and forceful symbol of what can happen when the world and what can be done about it Thus we offer special attractions such as resident gerbils a young person fails to learn to read—and fortunately asked the distinguished author Alex flaky to explore he also symbolizes how those in need can take themThese unusual enticements evoke a warmth in me the significance of literacy in our society today because they lead me to recall how my parents and grandselves in hand and do something about it WHILE SHOPPING IN A KNOXVILLE SUPERMARKET We talked a little more then bade each other goodparents came along with something different on the occasion of my fourth birthday in my dusty little cotton-farm- s recently I was startled when a smiling personable clerk bye was fascinated by our conversation and intrigued came up and grasped my hand "My tutor just assigned hometown of Henning Tenn Sixty years later I still There were a few more things I wanted to ask him me an article about you that's in my study book he remember vividly how they presented me with a foot-thiexclaimed "Sir I'm studying to learn to read" Functional illiteracy is the inability of an individual to slice from a big California redwood tree Small use reading writing or math skills in everyday life While The young man who identified himself as Joseph white markers were stuck in it at different places With Rivera said he'd bluffed his way through high school no one knows precisely how many Americans cannot our family all solemnly gathered my father used a pointe because until he finally dropped out to work read many major agencies and programs that focus on er to illustrate how the tree's growth rings had come one he saw no pressing need for reading or writing the problem have estimated the number at more than each year that each white marker represented some event - c II of that 'Olen ayoung r frill first-grade- rs first-grade- rs It 'A 6 6 ck full-tim- BY ALEX HALEY PAGE 28 SEPTEMBER 2 1990 PARADE MAGAZINE |
