Kristy Cooper Adult Literacy Program Coordinator & Head of Technology Services Westland Public Library

 There are 63 million adults who can’t read well enough to understand a newspaper article at the 8 th grade level or fill out a job application in this country (this is 29% of the American adult population).  Only a small fraction of those adult’s ever seek help  Among those who do, 100,000 are currently on agency waitlists to get paired with a tutor

 50% of children born to illiterate parents grow up to be illiterate adults.  Literacy skills are a stronger predictor of an individual’s health status than age, income, employment status, education level and racial or ethnic group.  Low health literacy costs between $106 billion and $238 billion each year in the U.S. — 7 to 17 percent of all annual personal health care spending.  Low literacy’s effects cost the U.S. $225 billion or more each year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime, and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment.

 Voting  Using computers and sending  Reading maps  Understanding Health information/reading labels on medication  Applying for jobs  Read newspaper/Understanding world events  Helping children with school work and writing notes to teachers  Using a bank, saving money and writing checks  Preparing nutritious meals

 Volunteer program  Reaching out to area literacy agencies  Finding out if there was enough interest among potential tutors for us to do a training  Doing assessments  Advertising for learners

 Anyone who enjoys reading and helping others  No background in education is required  People who understand how fundamental reading is towards personal fulfillment and success in life

 We had our first group of tutors go through training in late Spring 2011  So far we have had 29 active tutors and 36 learners enroll in our program  Currently there are 19 active pairs  We have had 3 “graduates”  Waitlist is growing  Balancing quantity of tutors and learners

 Low literacy interferes with computer literacy  There’s a reason some people won’t check out the book when the audiobook isn’t available.  A high school diploma doesn’t mean you can read  Illiterate people are often very skilled in other areas of their lives to compensate for their lack of reading skills.

Why Libraries?

  proliteracy.org  proliteracyednet.org  westlandlibrary.org/literacy

Kristy Cooper Westland Public Library  Slides: westlandlibrary.org/pdf/literacy.pdf