In the world america ranks as number 22 in literacy(http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=us&v=39). According to (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literacy) literacy is the ability to read and write. While most of the people in america are literate they vary according to how literate they are. What is elementary to us may be surprisingly difficult to someone else. In America although the literacy rate is 99%(http://www.reference.com/motif/society/literacy-rate-in-america) 3,109,120 people in America or 1% of the population is unable to read and write. Texas itself has 3 out of 5 of the least literate cities in America! No wonder people think being from texas makes you stupid. (http://time.com/9549/the-5-least-literate-cities-in-america/). Out of 75 cities Corpus ranks number 74 in literacy. That means that we are next to last not second place. According to Wall Street Corpus is almost the most illiterate in America.
With statistics like these it makes me wonder what is there that can be done and I found the literary council in Corpus Christi, Texas. “The mission of the Corpus Christi Literacy Council is to identify, develop, promote and coordinate comprehensive programs and resources that will measurably reduce functional illiteracy in the Corpus Christi Bay Area.”(http://ccliteracy.org/about-us/mission-and-goals/).
Their goals are to advocate the importance of literacy, start and keep a program to continue fighting illiteracy, develop a service to continue providing services in the community, stat and keep an independent branch to research and secure funding. These goals are there to help people and to keep the program alive. When i was there they had several thngs going. They had a volunteer group from TAMU do a techin...
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...out accomplishments for a reason.
Another program that the CCLiteracy Council has is ESL. English as a second language. I myself am an ESL person. I spoke spanish before english. The main problem was my assumption that all the individuals in the class were Mexicans. When i think of ESL i do not think of people from Arabia, India or France and Japan. Dr. Gleason actually surprised me when she told me they serviced more than just Spanish speakers. They actually knock 2 birds with 1 stone in their ESL classes. They have their English classes on a computer. With this they are actually helping them with multiple things. It teaches the students English literacy. Without literacy these individual would have even less social justice than illiterate americans. The reason is due to no cmmunication. In america we speak English so it is expected for immigrant to speak english.
My mom is Panamanian and a very bright woman and loves school, while my dad is African American and didn’t care for school at all and isn't very educated. My mom first came to America to study at Vanderbilt University and my dad never went to college. When I was four my parents got a divorce and my mother maintained custody of me. In this day in time people would say that my odds are against me when it comes to becoming literate. Why? Well, I didn’t grow up in the best neighborhood. The area I was raised in was nicknamed "Little Mexico" because many illegal immigrants lived there. I quickly learned that most of the people around me didn’t know how to read or write and they only spoke Spanish. Imagine them living in an English speaking country. If they couldn’t read or write in their own language living in America must be pretty complicated. It would clearly seem like I wouldn't have much access to literacy sponsors at all. Literacy sponsors can be people, places, or even events that shape how a person reads and writes. Those same people, places, and events can play a big factor in a person's opinion about reading and writing as well. However, it was almost impossible for me not to have any literacy sponsors with my mom being in my
Opportunities abound to stamp out illiteracy at the federal, state, and local level. Are these enough? For those in need, maybe not. Most everyone’s needs are unique. National Family Literacy Program helps those families nationwide with literacy problems. In our own state of Florida, Governor Jeb Bush has set up the Governor’s Mentoring Initiative Program which has helped over 9,000 adults and children improve their reading programs.
Finding a definition of literacy is not as easy as it sounds. The Webster definition says that to be literate is to be” able to read and write.” But to some researchers, this definition is too simplistic, leading to multiple models of literacy. Most Americans adhere to the autonomous model, which falls closest to the standard, dictionary definition. Believers in this form say that literacy is a cognitive activity that students learn like any other basic skill. It has a set of proficiencies that one must master in order to be capable of decoding and encoding text (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). A competing theory is the ideological model, which claims literacy is intrinsically linked to culture, and therefore what constitutes a “literate” individual is ever-changing. Society is the largest influence on literacy, according to this thought, and it is affected by politics, religion, philosophy and more (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). These two are just the tip of the iceberg. For example, some studies recognize “literacy as competence,” which is a “measure of competence to do a given task or work in a given field,” (SIL International, 1999) such as being computer literate. Although more researchers are recognizing and exploring multiple literacies, the one that most influences American schools is the autonomous, cognitive model – the ability to read and write. For many, it seems a simple task, but millions of adolescents are struggling or reluctant readers, and there are many reasons why young readers have difficulty with reading. XXXXXX------NEED HELP WITH THESIS STATEMENT HERE PLEASE—(This paper will focus on the effects of low reading skills, some of the possible causes of reluctant and struggling readership...
Living in the Southern United States during eighteenth century was a difficult time for African-Americans. Majority of them were slaves who received manipulation, sexual abuse and brutally whips to the spin. They were treated this way in order to stop them from gaining hope, knowledge and understanding of the world. Some African Americans managed to obtain these qualities from books and use them to escape from slavery. Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who wrote an autobiography, from which the excerpt "Learning to Read and Write" explains how he developed literacy. In the excerpt, an African American slave banned from learning to read and write, breaks the law in an attempt to free his mind from the restricted beliefs of his master. One significant idea portrayed from Douglass's ordeal is that reading and writing is a vital skill that benefits humanity.
The mission of the organization is to empower the Mexican and Latino community. We have ESL, classes, citizenship classes, computer skills classes, these are educational opportunities where people can come from any nationality come in and learn the skills. We also have a legal support area
“In recent years the Hispanic population in America has achieved status as the largest minority group in the United States surpassing African-Americans (Baker, p.438).” This sudden increase in the Hispanic-American population is monumental when looking at the past few hundred years when African-Americans held the spot as the largest minority group in the United States. Across the United States this sudden and unprecedented influx of primarily native Spanish speakers has become more visible in some areas than others. Due to the rapid growth and migration of this group it can be seen that many migrant children have not had the time or the opportunity to learn English well enough to achieve success at their particular grade level in the public school system. Many of these bright and eager to learn migrant students fall by the wayside upon entering the public school system. Due to the rapid increase in populations of migrant students in various parts in the United States it has become necessary for localized school systems to adopt and implement programs, utilizing assistive technology, to incorporate English language proficiency programs to help teach migrant students so that they might have a chance at achieving success and continuing to higher education taught exclusively in English.
“Land of Literacy” is a literacy program designed for Kindergarten students to promote the love of literature as well as build a strong literacy foundation. The purpose of this literacy program is to integrate unique and fun ways to learn literature while taking into consideration developmental and cultural differences. The idea of the “Land of Literacy” program is to show parents and students that through literature we can all connect as one diverse community while sharing and learning literacy.
Literacy, or the capability to comprehend, translate, utilize, make, process, assess, and speak information connected with fluctuating settings and displayed in differing organizations, assumes an essential part in molding a young's persons trajectory in life. The ability to read speaks to a key factor of scholarly, social, and financial success (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). These abilities likewise speak to a fundamental segment to having a satisfying life and turning into an effective worker and overall person (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1999). Interestingly, recent studies have demonstrated that low reading skills lead to critical hindrances in monetary and social achievement. As stated by the National Center for Education Statistics, adults with lower levels of reading skills and literacy have a lower average salary. Another study evaluated that 17 to 18 percent of adults with "below average" literacy aptitudes earned less than $300 a week, though just 3 to 6 percent of adults with "proficient" reading abilities earned less than $300 a week (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
Last school year, I took a college class that required hours of field experience in a high school English class. I was able to observe different English classes and different high school grade levels. What made a big impact on me was to hear some of those high school students struggling with reading more than the third grade students I was teaching that same school year. These students were expected to read and comprehend grade level text when they were reading at an elementary level. Illiteracy “is considered the blackest mark of a person’s finally in school and the greatest failure in the American school system” (Tchudi, and Tchudi 75) and there are around twenty-five million functional illiterates in the United States (75). Why are our middle school and high school students still struggling with reading? What can English/Language arts teachers do to help these struggling readers?
The speech program is a resource program for all ethnicity students (including Caucasian) who struggle with speaking English clearly. Much like the English Learning Language program, these groups organized according to grade level meet four times a week for forty-five minutes. That being said, I feel with better screening throughout our school district we would find the need for an ELD program and perhaps more who also qualify for ELL assistance. Just within Centennial Elementary, I am aware of students who are bilingual, family’s primary language is Spanish and the student struggles with their reading and writing. These said students are not receiving any assistance. I cannot imagine any parent knowing about programs available to assist their child 's learning and turning them away; especially knowing they are free. In reading an article written by Alison Bailey, she notes, “The cost of “missing” the right students in the initial survey process is extremely high” (Bailey, Lessons from AZ 's EL identification issues: How guidance could strengthen process, 2011). Thus supporting my feelings about screening all bilingual students whose primary home language is something other than English. An additional statement made by Bailey, “It seems the more tolerable ‘measurement error’ surely must be to have too many rather than too few students initially thrown into the
Out of all the American institutions that exist today, the educational system has one of the greatest impacts on the lives of people, especially for immigrants and their children who do not know how to speak English. The English language is a whole new, different perspective for people who come to America for the first time; their whole environment changes as well. The majority of the people who come to the United States are Hispanics, who are usually at the poverty level. Like everyone who come to America, they want to pursue a better quality of life, and in order to do that, you have to know how to speak the universal language, the English language. The myth of education here is that everyone can learn the same way through the English language—but that is not the case.
Their goal is to help children around the world realize their potential, thereby reducing poverty, crime and unemployment, through one-on-one mentoring programs, while striving to respect diversity and the individual needs of children and youth.
In our schools today, literacy should not just be a task for the English or Reading teacher. Instead, literacy should be a shared venture by all teachers within all content areas. Teaching literacy in all content areas is important because a teacher with a solid understanding of teaching literacy in his/her content area will tremendously help all students achieve greater success on class assignments and standardized assessments. There are three main points that surround the idea of teaching literacy in all content areas. Teachers need the necessary skills and knowledge to teach literacy, once the necessary skills and knowledge are gained then there is justification for teaching literacy across content areas, and
Being literate defines who I am, and forms an integral part of my life. From the practical to the creative, it aids, and enables me to perform in the tasks that modern society dictates. I shall explore the many aspects of my life that are affected by literacy. Through this, understanding in greater depth what it means for me, to be literate.
· The illiterate does not have the reading and writing skills to reinforce these skills in their children.