Join us in celebrating International Literacy Day, September 8th!

For the third year The Literacy Cooperative in partnership with Cleveland Public Library, Cuyahoga County Public Library, and WKYC, will celebrate International Literacy Day, September 8, 2016, promoting the importance of literacy and reading with a social media campaign. (We are also holding our inaugural Corporate Spelling Bee on September 8th as well). Last year we had over 500 pictures shared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We also trended #1 in the Cleveland area.

International Literacy Day 2016 collage

The city of Cleveland is already coming together to celebrate International Literacy Day with us! Some great pictures from Cleveland police officers, Captain Sulzer and Community Policing Commander Johnny Johnson, the Mayor of South Euclid, the team at Books@Work and the team from NEO Regional Library System!

Why is this so important? Literacy is an essential skill, one we use every day. Whether it is checking a bus schedule before work, reading a recipe to make dinner or taking medications before bed; it is a skill many of us don’t even think about using. For many though reading is difficult, limiting their everyday lives. In Cuyahoga County 435,000 adults read at or below a 7th grade level. For these low-literate adults daily life can be a struggle. Low literacy limits their job opportunities, which in turn limits their ability to earn a livable wage and take care of their families. Lack of literacy skills can make it difficult to help their children in school; causing their children to lose a valuable resource for their own successes. Even every day activities, like grocery shopping and cooking are difficult. They may be unable to read nutritional information on food, limiting their ability to make healthy choices for themselves and their families.

This may seem like a large crisis, one beyond your capabilities to help, but that is not true. One of the main ways you can help is by raising awareness on International Literacy Day, Thursday September 8th .  International Literacy Day is a global campaign instituted by UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to raise awareness about literacy and how it is critical to our region’s economic future.

The theme for this year’s campaign is Recommended Reads. On September 8th, we are asking everyone to post a reading selfie with a book or books that you recommend for others to read. It can be an all-time favorite book, a new release that you fell in love with or even an interesting article. Then be sure to share your pictures on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with #CLEreads2016 and #RecommendedReads. Be sure to follow the hashtags yourself to see what others are posting and to get some reading suggestions for yourself.

Don’t have the book on hand? No problem, just post a reading selfie and include the title and author of the book you would like to recommend in your post. Be sure to tag the author in your post. There is nothing a writer enjoys more than seeing their work recommended to others. Want to help a low literate adults improve their reading skills?  Suggest a children’s book for parents to read to their children. We want everyone to end the day with having added at least one book to their “to-read” list as well as have heightened their awareness about literacy in our community and country.

We have an additional way you can participate in this very important day with us. During the month of September the library systems of Cuyahoga County are promoting “A Card for Every Child,” initiative. The initiative seeks to ensure that all children under 18 in Cuyahoga County own a library card.

In preparation for the day we are asking you to encourage your followers, friends, family and colleagues to go to the library and get their library card. Don’t have one yourself? Set an example and get your own card. The library is full of wonderful books for you and for you to recommend to other

International Literacy Day is an important day to raise awareness about the importance of literacy. It only takes a few simple steps to participate:

literacy_day2016

Please consider joining us in celebrating International Literacy Day on September 8th. Low literacy in our community is a crisis. One that desperately needs your help and attention. One picture and post on September 8th can do so much to help us continue to raise awareness about this important issue.

We look forward to seeing all the fantastic reading selfies and great book recommendations!

Make sure you are following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (@literacycoop) to stay up-to-date on the activities of the day!

Elizabeth Poulos, Our Summer Intern, Reflects on Her Time with The Literacy Cooperative

Liz blog postElizabeth Poulos interned with The Literacy Cooperative from May to July of this year (2016) as part of the Williams Alumni Internship Grant. The Williams Alumni Internship Grant is designed to allow students to engage in constructive and innovative projects which address significant needs, link knowledge and structural change within society. Ms. Poulos will be a sophomore at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

As part of her intern experience she worked on projects related to our early literacy initiatives. In the following piece she reflects on what she learned about the literacy crisis in our city as well as the important role literacy programs, like our program STEP, play in connecting the city to tools and resources needed to fight this crisis.

“Some Cleveland neighborhoods like Hough, Fairfax, Central, and Kinsman, have functional illiteracy rates as high as 95%.” I first came in contact with this statistic about a month into my internship at The Literacy Cooperative, when I was compiling literacy facts for their upcoming Corporate Spelling Bee. When I first read this I was surprised, not only by the gravity of the situation, but also its extent in neighborhoods with which I was familiar. How does one approach a problem when it was so widespread?

The more statistics I read, the more dwarfed my efforts as an intern felt in the face of the giant odds when fighting for literacy in Cleveland. Yet, upon further reflection, I realized that as someone working at a nonprofit, as someone fighting for a cause, you can’t let the statistics get the best of you. Yes, these statistics are incredibly helpful, and they can mark meaningful reform and progress being made in literacy policy in Northeast Ohio; but the moment when I felt most connected to the issue of literacy, and progress being made in the city, was when I read the survey responses of kids who had taken part in the STEP reading intervention program with the help of support from their school and The Literacy Cooperative. I had been learning a lot about the STEP program by reading about it on our website, rethinking the pamphlet we use about STEP, cutting and organizing different STEP packets, but nothing compared to the insight I got about STEP, and literacy efforts here in Cleveland, than the responses of those young scholars.

STEP, or Supporting Tutors Engaging Pupils, is a supplementary reading intervention tutoring program that TLC shepherded into the system’s of several Northeast Ohio schools, like George Washington Carver. STEP helps students by giving them a chance to practice reading, and to build their literacy skills with tutors who have been provided with the structure and tools to help their scholar’s soar. Although not all the scholar responses were positive (often STEP time infringes on the oh-so-popular recess time), what I sensed in every survey was the receptiveness, and eagerness of each student to try: to try and read, to try to learn, to try and build the literacy skills they will use for life. For many of these students, STEP helped meet this eagerness with quality tools and programming that provided clear positive results. What became clear to me was not that we need to work harder as a movement to get the scholars excited and eager to learn, but that the real challenge lies in providing the same level of energy in the resources they are given to improve their literacy, to give them the best possible tools to make those improvements. And that’s what The Literacy Cooperative does, and I think that’s what I found to be my true goal in my time there as an intern; to help the organization, and to help connect literacy efforts around the city with the tools and resources they need to make a real difference.

There is Still Time to Beat the Summer Slide

Summer Slide blogThe summer is winding down. How have you spent these warm weeks? On a family vacation? Taking walks in the park, playing at the beach? Going to festivals or amusement parks? How about reading together or doing a handful of math problems with your child once a day?

Don’t let the summer end without helping your child beat the Summer Slide. There is still plenty of time to prepare for the coming school year.

The Summer Slide refers to how over the summer months young people lose academic skills and progress gained over the school year. The Summer Slide particularly affects children of low-income families. During the summer, low-income students lose on average more than two months of reading achievement. By the end of fifth grade, low-income children are nearly three grade equivalents behind their higher-income peers in reading.

So, what can be done to defy these statistics and be prepared for the coming school year? Take a trip to the library and take out a number of books you can read together. Find books covering a range of topics from fiction to nonfiction. Spend at least 20 minutes a day reading these books together. It can be before bed, in the morning, during lunch or while in the waiting room of a doctor or dentist. Why not spend a summer afternoon reading outside in the shade of a tree?

Reading doesn’t have to be from a book. During breakfast you can read the back of a cereal box together. You can even use this time to discuss the nutritional information and talk about healthy eating. While you are driving you can read road signs. You can go over shapes and colors of the signs with younger children as well.

summer slide blog (books)    The summer is a great time to get children outside and active. You can create reading games, such as a vocabulary scavenger hunt. Label items throughout your yard or hide certain words in the trees and bushes. Have you child run about finding all the words and then use them to create sentences and stories. They are active and learning at the same time!

It doesn’t take much time to help your child to be prepared to start school. Reading with them for at least 20 minutes a day is a simple way to help fight the Summer Slide.

 

Meet Juan M. and Tyeishia L.; Two Lives Transformed by the Parma Adult Education Program

2016 marks The Literacy Cooperative’s 10 year anniversary! To celebrate this milestone, we partnered with the Cleveland Bridge Builders Class of 2016 to showcase community organizations across Greater Cleveland that have incorporated literacy-based programs into their scope of service during the past 10 years. We asked them to write a post highlighting their journey, featuring the accomplishments, achievements and how they have helped the community learn and grow over the last ten years. We will be featuring the posts throughout the next few months.

This week’s guest blog post comes from Nanette Penny, Communication Specialist, Adult Education Services, Parma City School District.

For more than 50 years the Parma City School District’s Adult Education Program has been dedicated to helping adult students achieve their literacy and educational goals. What began as a small program in the Parma area has blossomed into an expansive literacy powerhouse across the Greater Cleveland area. With over 30 different sites holding classes that specialize in Adult Basic Education, GED© Preparation, Workforce Training, ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), English Languages/Civics Education, TOFEL Test Preparation, US Citizenship Test Preparation and College Success Workshops, Parma Adult Education has impacted the lives of thousands of Cuyahoga County residents.

Parma Adult Education students are transforming their lives through education. They are learning new skills, achieving objectives, and impacting the world. Read on for stories of real students who have succeeded in the Parma Adult Education program.

Juan M.

Parma Adult Ed stories- JuanJuan is a 58-year-old veteran who grew up in a tough neighborhood in Chicago. To escape the poverty and violence around him, he joined the army at the age of seventeen and served in Panama where he was trained as a Combat Medic. After an honorable discharge, Juan returned to Chicago and embarked on a music career. He always had a talent for music, and he played as a percussionist with bands in the Latin night clubs. Although his music career was very successful, Juan became too involved with the darker aspects of night life and developed an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

After struggling for many years, Juan joined a church support group that helped him overcome his addictions. He played music for the church, got a job as a CNC programmer in a factory, and got married. Several years later, however, everything fell apart. He got a divorce and relapsed into drug use. He overdosed on the street and was transported to the hospital by the police in the city where he now lives – Cleveland, Ohio. He was then transferred to the Matt Talbot Inn, a rehab facility, where he completed a 60-day recovery program.

While Juan was a client at the Matt Talbot Inn, counselors saw something special in him. They told him that if he stayed sober and got his GED, they would hire him as a mentor to younger residents at the facility. In March of 2016 Juan officially passed his GED test! He has begun working as a third shift attendant at the Matt Talbot Inn and has already spoken with a representative from Cuyahoga Community College about enrolling in a Chemical Dependence certificate program. He has a deep desire to give back to his community and is grateful for every opportunity to do so.

Tyeishia L.

Parma Adult Ed stories- TyeishaTyeishia, 24 years old with a two year old daughter, had lived in her car or slept on a mattress at a different home every night for more than a year because she had no money for a place of her own. She felt hopeless, stuck earning $8 an hour at a local photo shop and barely paying her bills. Unfortunately, Tyeishia lacked the skills or experience to change the pattern of living paycheck to paycheck.

But then she heard about NewBridge. Finding out about this opportunity “saved my life,” she said, adding that the fact our courses are free meant she could move toward a career without going into debt.

But her challenges did not end there. Tyeishia had trouble passing the basic skills test needed to become a student. But NewBridge made sure that she had the help she needed to overcome this obstacle. Using our free tutoring and refresher training, Tyeishia finally passed the test.

She made it clear, during the interview process, that NewBridge was a lifeline for her. “My life depends on this,” she said, as she could not support herself and her daughter on minimum wage jobs. “I need a career and I need it now.” Unfortunately, even after acceptance into the program, she still faced other obstacles. Even though NewBridge is free, she still needed to work to pay her bills and support her daughter. But doing so, as well as taking classes and taking care of her toddler, left her exhausted. According to Tyeishia, she was so tired that she had trouble staying awake during class.

But that’s where NewBridge’s supportive, nurturing environment came into play as her classmates and teacher provided her with the support she needed to make it through to graduation. “We were a family. We all loved each other, looked out for each other, including bringing food when others didn’t have it,” Tyeishia says. Also, her teacher brought her free bus passes when her car broke down so that she could get to and from class.

Tyeishia learned not only how to be a phlebotomist, but also how to be a professional, using the technical skills and workplace skills that NewBridge makes a central part of our program. Her skills only increased during the externship that NewBridge provides as part of an agreement with University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic and MetroHealth. “I became one with the needle,” Tyeishia joked. This training and experience put her in demand and she just landed a job with the Cleveland Clinic.

Now, not only does Tyeishia have her own apartment, but she has the time to be a much greater part of her daughter’s life. Beforehand she only had the time to feed her daughter and put her to bed each night, but that’s no longer the case.

NewBridge changed her entire perspective, Tyeishia said. After our program, “I felt like I was going to be okay,” Tyeishia said, adding “I wasn’t drowning anymore.”

To learn more about Parma Adult Education Services head over to their website, www.parmacityschools.org/Adulted.

Be sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter as well.

We Need You! Become a NEO Skill Corps Member and Make a Difference in your Community!

Americorps-logo

We need you!  If you have a desire to make a difference in your community- we need you! If you have a drive to impact those around you-we need you! More specifically, there are 435,000, one in two adults, in Cuyahoga County challenged to understand a job application, or directions for taking medication, or the best routes and times to catch public transit. They need you!  There are more than 120,000 adults over age 18 that do not have a high school diploma. They need you! There are 80,000 adults in Cuyahoga County that make less than $13 per hour with 50% making minimum wage. They need you!

NEO Skill Corps provides individuals opportunities to serve their communities through the AmeriCorps program, http://www.serveohio.org/programs/americorps/. When you become an NEO Skill Corps member you will be working with adults 18 and older in the Cleveland and Lorain communities. NEO Skill Corps Members assist adult job-seekers and entry level employees to advance their literacy and workforce skills by providing direct services in financial literacy, workforce development training, and basic skills instruction, including adult literacy. These are adults, who because of their low-literacy skills, have a difficult time finding and maintaining stable employment. The ultimate goal of this position is to help these adults find stable employment or to encourage them to further their education. There are a number of ways you will help achieve this goal, a few of the main ones are by helping them raise their skills scores that increase employment opportunities, teaching financial literacy to help create budgets and learn about credit scores and savings, assisting adults to find stable employment for themselves and their families.

We are currently recruiting for our 2016-17 NEO Skills Corps year.  The program year runs from August 2016 through August 2017. The positions are either full-time or part-time. Members are matched to host sites that are mutually agreed upon by the member and the organizations. Once assigned you will work at that host site for the entire year. Currently there are positions available at the following host sites: Towards Employment, Seeds of Literacy, West Side Catholic Center, Migration Services, Council of Economic Opportunity of Greater Cleveland and Lorain County Urban League.

To become an NEO Skills Corps member it is preferred that applicants have a Bachelor’s degree, or at least some college education; current college students are encouraged to apply. Those applying to become members should be able to work in high pressure environments, have some experience working with adult learners, and are able to work with a diverse population. Members needs to be organized and are able to consistently meet deadlines. Responsibilities include implementing and recruiting for a training program that focuses on financial literacy, adult literacy, and the connection to the workforce. Those applying should also have a working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite, more specifically Microsoft Word and Excel. Some data entry is also required. But the most important thing a member needs is a desire to help their community and the drive to help low-literate adults to improve their literacy skills, employment status and lives.

AmeriCorps benefits include a living allowance, medical benefits (for full-time members), student loan deferment, training, and eligibility for a Segal AmeriCorps Education award equal to the maximum amount of a Pell Grant.

If becoming an NEO Skills Corps member and helping low-literate adults in your community to gain skills to help them gain stable employment sounds like a position that is right for you then please email your cover letter and resume to sbuckner@universitysettlment.net. Those you help as well as your community will be grateful.