By Ruth Olson
Eduardo Alonso, 36, leans over the drab green desk in the narrow cubicle, his legs twisted around the leg of the rolling chair, poring over a workbook of synonyms. His tutor, Renata Swanson, sits beside him, watching.
“Talking aloud is not allowed here,” she reads slowly. Alonso stares down at the paper in concentration. Swanson nods encouragement, and Alonso writes the missing word carefully in the blank space.
Swanson and Alonso are both participating in Project Read, a government-funded program that addresses illiteracy.
“I think people don”t realize, especially in the United States and in this part of the United States, that there really is a problem with illiteracy,” said Joy Glaus, program coordinator for the Provo-based Project Read.
Programs to tackle illiteracy exist in the area, but funding is a problem. Despite the fact that the ideology behind the programs differ drastically, all agree that more must be done if the problem will ever be solved.
Numbers of illiterate people, statewide and nationwide, do not seem to be dropping, said Glaus. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, a 2003 nation-wide study of adult literacy in the U.S., the percentage of illiterate adults in the U.S. has stayed more or less the same since 1992, the last time the survey was performed.
Equal percentages and a rising population translate into a growing number of functionally illiterate people, Glaus said. But even as the numbers are growing, some options for illiterate adults may be dropping.
Eduardo Alonso and his wife, Magali Andino, have had first-hand experience with illiteracy. When they arrived from Uruguay, neither could read English fluently. Both enrolled in Project Read. Andino graduated a few months ago and Alonso is still studying. Alonso said it has also helped him learn English better, which helps him out in his work as a chef.
“If you don”t speak English here in the U.S., you can”t do anything,” he said.
Barry Graff, administrator of K-12 education services in the Alpine School District, was formerly over Even Start, another government program that targets whole families to fight illiteracy. However, last year funding was cut and the program is no longer in operation. Graff said even while the program was running, he had a waiting list of people who wanted to get in, but limited resources did not allow the program to serve all those who qualified for assistance.
“It”s a pinprick. That”s all it is – a pinprick response to the need that”s out there,” Graff said. He said the program, which involves teaching parents literacy while at the same time teaching their preschool-aged children, has proven effective in keeping the children reading at the proper level. However, he said funding always is a problem.
“Saying money doesn”t matter is like saying money doesn”t matter to the military, that you can fight a war without money. That just doesn”t work,” Graff said.
After the Even Start program was cut last year, the school district cobbled together a replacement program called Alpine Family Literacy to take the place of Even Start, but Graff said it was at best a skeleton of a program.
Project Read is another program that targets illiteracy. It is a state-funded tutoring program that relies on volunteer work and one-on-one tutoring to teach basic reading skills to adults. Glaus said over 21,000 adults in Utah County can”t read and write at a functional level – defined by the program as anyone reading below a grade six or seven level.
“Six or seventh grade level or below – you”re not really going to be able to read, say, an apartment lease contract, or we have students that can”t read instructions on a Rice-A-Roni box or something like that,” Glaus said.
She said many of the people who come to Project Read are people like Alonso and Andino, who are not native English speakers. Although they may be literate and well-educated in their native language, they are functionally illiterate in English.
Other factors that lead to illiteracy, according to Glaus, are abuse, learning disabilities, and frequent moving, such as in a military family – if a child changes schools often, it is difficult to have the continuity needed to learn basic skill such as reading, she said. But despite efforts to serve the community, she said it is an up-hill battle. The number of people Project Read can serve is just too small to eradicate the problem.
Ed Green takes a different approach to the problem of illiteracy. Green, a former professor of instructional psychology and teaching at BYU, is the managing director of the Family Literacy Center, Inc., a non-profit organization based out of Orem. He agreed that illiteracy is a problem that needs to be solved. However, he said he believes that solution will not come from government intervention. Instead he said the solution must come from community efforts.
“It”s a big problem,” Green said. “The poor schools can”t go it alone. The public schools are strapped with large enrollments and taking everybody that comes, and they just have a lot of problems.”
He said illiteracy has high costs not only to the illiterate person, but also to society as a whole.
“There are actually states in the United States that build prisons based upon literacy rates, because they know that two-thirds of the kids who can”t read by grade four will end up in prison or on welfare,” Green said, reading the numbers from a slide on his wall.
“It affects every aspect of our lives – our standard of living, our health care costs and policies, our safety, our children”s future, everything,” he said.
And although the problem of illiteracy is daunting, Green said he thinks it is solvable. The Family Literacy Centers work with funds from private donors to teach literacy to anyone – adults or children – who would like to learn. The students, in turn, are expected to come back as volunteer tutors once they graduate to help others. Green said he believes this is the only way the illiteracy will finally be eradicated.
“I don”t know of any other way to do this,” he said. “You can”t work through government, you can”t be mandated; it”s got to be a grassroots from the bottom-up type organization.”
Despite the different ideas about how to solve the problem, all seemed to agree that the best solution was prevention: to get children literate before they become adults. And they all agree that the biggest payback to teaching literacy is the change in the lives of the students.
“We had a student call her tutor late at night, really excited, because she made her first box of Rice-A-Roni because she could finally read the directions,” Glaus said.
Renata Swanson, Alonso”s tutor, is also the tutor representative for Project Read. Her own parents emigrated from Europe and spoke no English when they arrived in the U.S., and she said because of that she feels a bond with people who arrive with the same circumstances. But she said she tutors mostly because she likes it.
“I just enjoy doing it,” she said. “People just really appreciate the help.”
“If we get one person from a third-grade level til they go to college, which we defiantly have in our program many people doing that, we”re making a difference in their life,” Glaus said. “But it is that fight. I think even nationally the numbers show that the more and more effort we”re putting into this, you still see that there”s still so many people out there to help.”
