WAY WITH WORDS

BY WILLI MILLER
PHOTOS BY ED DRONDOSKI

Do you remember the first time you recognized a word in a book?

Chances are you were a youngster and that day was the beginning of a lifetime of learning and adventure. Now imagine yourself at your present age, unable to order from a menu, read a note from your child’s teacher or fill out a job application. For a surprisingly large number of adults on the Treasure Coast, such functional illiteracy is a reality.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 20 percent of Florida residents lack basic literacy skills. On the Treasure Coast, the numbers range from 11 percent in Martin County to 16 percent in St. Lucie County. The good news is the presence of nonprofit agencies in each of the Treasure Coast counties, all with programs aimed at lowering those numbers.

For Mary Silva, executive director of Literacy Services of Indian River County, the mission of the agency is expressed best in its e-mail signature: “Helping adults improve literacy skills, opening a world of possibilities through friends — one page, one book, one life at a time.”

Fulfilling that mission requires volunteers and financial support. In Indian River and St. Lucie counties, the services are United Way agencies. In Martin County, the Center for Reading & Literacy is an arm of the Martin County Library System. All three rely heavily on private and corporate donations and community-supported fundraising events. “We receive no government funding; thus, all our support comes from individuals, businesses and foundations,” Silva says. There is no charge to students for the private tutoring sessions.

TUTORS A KEY
The coveted ability to read is gained through successful pairings of tutors and students, who can range in age from the late teens to the 80s. Luz Ma. Camacho, executive director of Learn to Read of St. Lucie County, says a wide variety of students come to the agency for help. One is an 83-year-old grandmother who wants to be able to read to her grandchildren. The goal of another student, Haiti-born Rosalie Jean-Baptiste, 40, is to earn her GED certificate.

Tutors, who attend a half-day workshop before being assigned to a student, are in short supply. In each county there is a waiting list of students hoping to be paired up with the one person who will guide them toward their goal. For the three agencies, success depends on their ability to match potential students with the right tutors, not always an easy task. One of the problems in setting up tutoring sessions is coordinating personal schedules, Silva says. The most difficult aspect of her job is telling an eager student he will have to wait for a tutor to become available.

Donna Golet, adult literacy coordinator for the Martin County center, agrees. “A difficult side of the job is matching the tutor/student meeting schedules and preferences. Occasionally, it takes more time to coordinate meeting days and times due to volunteer and learner activities and results in learning delays for the student.”

Learn to Read of St. Lucie County has established a language lab that allows students to get a head start while waiting for a tutor, Camacho says.

The one-on-one tutoring sessions are conducted in public places, frequently a library meeting room, although the agency might not be affiliated with the library system. Tutors are both full-time and seasonal residents, but they all want to share their love for reading and learning, Golet says. “They want to help people in need and share the joy that reading and learning has brought to them. It feels great to help individuals and families in the community.”

Camacho calls volunteers “the backbone of our organization,” one that was founded in St. Lucie County in 1981 by Dorothy Brennan. Brennan was determined that an incident described in a local newspaper — a mother had given her child an overdose of medicine because she wasn’t able to read the instructions on the label — would never happen to another parent.

Personal rewards come to the agencies’ directors as well as to the students. For Silva, it’s “hearing a student say she was able to help her child with homework for the first time, or had been promoted in her job because of improved reading skills. Being able to order something other than a hamburger from a menu is a huge step (forward),” Golet says. “It is a wonderful feeling to see the delight a student expresses when they are presented a diploma or certificate of completion. I enjoy helping people who help others.” And for Camacho, “Helping our learners improve their lives is the most rewarding part of the job.”

Hundreds of Treasure Coast students move along the path to literacy each year, but Camacho says, “Our goal is to be out of business. We would love to not be needed.”