I just want to share about an exciting meeting I was a part of last night at our church. With the additional space we will soon have at church, some of us have been thinking about how we can use it to benefit those who live near the church. Census data for our "tract" shows that 30% do not have a high school diploma, and 42% speak a language other than English in the home. A long-time passion of mine has been helping adults who are illiterate learn how to read. A few of us have been wondering whether our church could begin such a program, helping those who are native speakers of English who can't even read well enough to take the GED or manage many other life tasks. I've been noticing that even in our church services, someone who can't read could not sing the words on the screen in the front or recite anything done in unison.
Last night twelve of us brainstormed about the possibilities. It was so exciting to become aware of the past experiences and training of these people and see how willing they are to offer their services as volunteers. Many are retired reading teachers, and one has been a probation officer for 31 years and has seen the direct correlation between lack of education and incarceration. We hope to expand this group and perhaps have a program in place by fall.
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2 comments:
That sounds like an exciting program. Would you teach in it?
We're not sure yet who will do what. We will probably start out with one-on-one tutoring and hope eventually to offer classes for different ability levels. We will also need an administrator for initial testing, matching students and tutors, paper work, etc. I plan to tutor and maybe later teach a class (although it seems as though we have several experienced reading teachers--which I am not).
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