Published: April 18, 2008 04:56 pm            

Read this: Literacy council helps many

Alice Semrad has been a tutor since 1998.

She volunteers to help people learn to read, which she said helps them to achieve a higher standard of life. Her students are hard-working and loyal, many of them are young mothers with children ,and it is hard for them to find the time to come to class, plus do the homework necessary.

“You are at a disadvantage if you don’t read and write well; those skills help increase your economic status,” she said.

Her students come at varying degrees of English knowledge, but the program always works because it is flexible enough to be designed around whatever the students’ goals are. Both the tutor and the student work at the level of the student. They use textbooks that are written so the student can advance at his own level in standard steps.

“The way the books are set up the students are comfortable with it,” she said.

The textbooks tell stories that the students can follow and ask questions about the stories so the student can fill in the answer. They also use examples of the same word in different ways, the way the English language does. Some of Semrad’s students attend Carver Center and study English as a second language.

Teaching English is easier because it is a language that is universally used in many countries. Tina Blunk, project coordinator, of Enid Literacy Council said there are also picture dictionaries and multi-language dictionaries with software for that.

“We ask their goals and help them achieve them. It also helps in life. We help them read forms they get at school that they can’t read,” she said.

Lessons are built around helping the students meet their goals. The literacy council currently tutors about 50 students a year and now has 38 active students with 18 volunteers. Students come with varying degrees of literacy. An assessment test tells their grade level equivalent and tests are done each year to obtain their progress. In 2007, she said, 74 percent showed at least a one grade level improvement.

About 75 percent of the students are English language learners, and the rest are English speakers who don’t read well.

One of Semrad’s students is Patricia Vega, a Mexican citizen who has been in the United States for two years. She began taking lessons in 2006. Semrad also teaches her brother.

Vega said the lessons have helped her communicate with the people she works with. She did not learn English in Mexico, but Semrad said she already can write stories and her pronunciation is good. Blunk and Semrad agree one of the successes of the program is one-on-one tutoring.

Vega wants to learn to speak and write English and if she can reach a point at whichshe speaks and writes well enough she hopes to work in a bank or store. She completed high school in Mexico, so she also could go on to higher education at Northern Oklahoma College.

“I want to speak well and understand all people,” she said.