Four graduate students are partnering with Literacy Action of Central Arkansas to create a strategic plan to increase awareness and volunteerism for adult literacy in Pulaski and Faulkner Counties.
Clinton School students Jessica Boyd of Little Rock, Ark., Matthew Caston of Jackson, Miss., Sean O’Keefe of Seattle, Wash., and Emily Wernsdorfer of York, Penn., have spent the past year assessing attitudes and perceptions about adult literacy in Central Arkansas through 60 interviews with key community leaders.
They have collected opinions about why many adults have low literacy skills, how it affects the community and the most effective ways to address the issue. This information will be used to create a plan for Literacy Action, a nonprofit that provides free one-on-one tutoring for adults, to increase their engagement with the community in order to recruit and retain more volunteer tutors.
“Literacy Action serves about 250 adults a year. But we’re reminded, almost at every turn, that that’s just scratching the surface. It’s important that the community leadership understands the big issue of adult literacy and how it affects our community,” said Neil Jones, executive director of Literacy Action.
Thirty thousand adults in Pulaski County alone read below a fifth-grade level. Adult literacy has an impact on other socioeconomic issues such as employment, crime and early childhood education.
“It is important to raise awareness about adult literacy and illustrate its connection to other issues in order to increase community involvement in adult literacy,” Boyd said.
Literacy Action of Central Arkansas and the Clinton School team will present the results of their study on Thursday, May 2 at 5:30 p.m. in the Acxiom Auditorium Room. The presentation is open to the public and refreshments will be available.
Please RSVP to lacapracticum@gmail.com by April 26 if would like to attend.
The students completed the project as part of the Clinton School’s Practicum program, the first of three field service projects in the Master of Public Service degree program.
About Literacy Action of Central Arkansas
Literacy Action of Central Arkansas is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the improvement of adult literacy skills across Central Arkansas. Established in 1987 to give adults options to learn to read, Literacy Action’s other services include teaching English to non-native speakers and preparing low-literacy adults to enter post-secondary training programs. Literacy Action offers free, one-on-one tutoring to help adults gain the basic literacy skills needed to attain family-supporting employment, to read to their children, and to live healthy lives.
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