Hooked on literacy

Monday, November 23, 1998

Hooked on literacy

Many students devote their time and energy to helping others
learn to read, something an estimated

1.5 million Angelenos can’t do

By Trina Enriquez

Daily Bruin Contributor

On Saturday mornings, a little boy rides his bike through the
streets of Watts so that a college student can tutor him in
reading.

He joins dozens of other people ranging from age 7 to adult who
seek help in mastering English language skills.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, one in five
Americans is considered functionally illiterate.

This means that 20 percent of the U.S. population reads below a
fourth-grade level. They cannot read a menu, understand a billing
statement or fill out a job application.

In response to widespread illiteracy in the Los Angeles area,
several student groups have formed at UCLA to combat the
problem.

Groups such as the Asian American Tutorial Project, La Escuela
de la Raza, and Project WILD (Working for Illiteracy Development)
focus outreach efforts on Asians and Latinos.

One-on-one tutoring involves instruction in English reading and
language skills, which, according to an English Language
Proficiency survey, about 37 percent of illiterate adults lack.

Also on campus is Project Literacy, whose volunteers tutor at
public libraries in Watts and Vernon or the community center at Mar
Vista Gardens in Culver City several times a week.

Project Literacy was formed eight years ago, in response to
requests from these communities for tutoring. Demand for tutors is
high, with about 800 requests per year and more than 70 learners on
the wait list.

Tutors provide individual attention which is often missing from
crowded Los Angeles public schools.

"It’s so important to the learners that someone comes every week
and makes a commitment to them," says Maddie Gygli, a Project
Literacy director. "It becomes more than just tutoring; you become
personally involved."

Learners often respond to the one-on-one interaction with rapid
progress. They usually have fallen behind for various reasons,
which include physical and emotional disabilities, ineffective
teachers and dropping out of school.

According to the Literacy Volunteers of America, children of
illiterate parents often don’t have role models or materials for
reading, and they consequently grow up with severe literary
deficiencies, thus perpetuating the cycle of illiteracy.

Tutors such as third-year economics student Lynn Etheredge seek
to break that cycle one session at a time.

A volunteer at the Watts Public Library, Etheredge tutors
38-year-old Leonette Smith, a woman with dyslexia, every Saturday
morning.

The two women sit at a table reviewing the phonics of various
prefixes and suffixes.

"No, I don’t want to review," groans Smith, as Etheredge pulls
out the phonics manual. Yet she immediately focuses on sounding out
and saying the word endings, pausing on the suffix "-ang."

"’-Ang is said without a hard ‘g’ at the end," says Etheredge,
demonstrating the proper sound.

Smith looks at her apprehensively. "But if you say it that way,
it sounds like ‘-an.’"

"No, ‘-an’ is a little different from ‘-ang,’" Etheredge
explains as she emphasizes the two endings. "Hear the
difference?"

Still doubtful, Smith gives a comic shudder and shakes her head.
"All right, let’s just hang ‘-ang,’" she says firmly before both
women break into laughter.

When they first began reading together last October, Etheredge
remembers, "Leonette started out stumbling a lot – you could tell
she didn’t read at all. Yet, already she’s improved
tremendously."

"She’ll rip on herself, but she’s extremely determined,"
Etheredge continues. "Joking about it is her way of making it
fun."

Smith was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was in 11th grade.
Though she wasn’t reading at recommended grade levels, teachers
kept passing her until she graduated from a local high school.

"When I was growing up, I’d say words backwards and get whupped
for it," Smith recalls. "But the school system just kept passing me
because they didn’t want to deal with me anymore."

After graduation, Smith’s mother helped her fill out job
applications she couldn’t comprehend. Eventually, she landed a job
running Xerox machines and binding copies in books – "only by
memory," she said – which she has done for the past 17 years.

Smith is currently looking for other jobs, but she realized that
she couldn’t get paid more unless she knew how to read. She
searched for literacy tutoring programs but was told that it would
cost her up to $2,500 to learn how to read.

Also, the programs she found were only offered during the day.
Her job wouldn’t allow her time off to take the courses, and she
needed to work in order to help support her family.

Smith also tried the home-learning program Hooked on Phonics,
but she couldn’t make sense of the corrections when she
faltered.

"You can’t tell someone why something’s supposed to be changed
and not give them a valid reason for it," Smith says. "If nobody’s
there to correct you, you’ll never understand where you’re making
mistakes."

It is for that reason that Smith has never missed a session with
Etheredge.

"I didn’t really want to be here (getting tutored)," Smith says,
"but I’m here because I had to do something about (my illiteracy).
Otherwise it’s never going to get done, and nobody else can do it
for me.

"It kind of bothers me that I can’t help my own child with
homework," she adds softly. "Sometimes I feel like breaking down
and crying because I can’t read something and teach my child (about
it)."

Sometimes, she continues, that’s why a person doesn’t want to go
to a parent-teacher conference. Or to a Bible study at church,
because they make you read aloud.

"I’m tired of being afraid to pick up a book," says Smith, who
has never finished reading one. "I may read the first page, but if
it’s too hard to comprehend, back down it goes."

She promised herself that before she turned 40, she would know
how to read and use a dictionary.

"I’m tired of being shoved under the table, so that’s why this
reading has to be done," Smith says.

"But I don’t think it’s fair," she adds. "I wish I could go back
to all my teachers, dead or alive, and tell them it wasn’t fair for
them to pass me when I wasn’t at the (reading) level I was supposed
to be at."

She pauses. "If people can’t read, they can’t go anywhere in
life. They’ll be like me, with a boring job, boring
everything."

Smith is one of an estimated 1.5 million illiterate adults in
Los Angeles county, only 4 percent of whom are served by existing
illiteracy programs.

Illiteracy creates a vicious cycle which often relegates people
to menial labor and minimum wage.

Lacking the financial resources to educate themselves,
illiterate people are unable to break that cycle without the help
of programs such as Project Literacy, which targets a problem that
affects 45 million individuals in the United States alone.

Volunteers often speak of the need to give back to the
community, and they claim that turning their backs on people who
exhibit bravery and motivation to tackle their illiteracy would be
terrible.

"I mean, it’s a Saturday and she’s 13 years old," said Andrew
McElroy, a second-year student who has tutored the same girl since
last year. "When I was 13, I wouldn’t have done any homework on a
Saturday."

Helping one student at a time, however, embodies the commitment
that will eventually lead to the changes necessary to combat
illiteracy in the United States.

"It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and if you don’t got yours,
they sure ain’t gonna give it to you," Smith says emphatically.

"Dreams get drowned out when you can’t do anything about them.
To make them come true, you have to understand how to read," she
adds.

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