Cape Cod Literacy Council

About the Literacy Council

	Message from the Director
	Meet Catherine Brannigan, our Volunteer Coordinator
	Who are our students?
	Who are our tutors?
	What does it mean to be able to read?
	How can you help us achieve our goal?

Dorothe Bozza, Executive Director

Message from the Director
Coping with illiteracy is a full time occupation for the estimated 30,000 residents of Cape Cod who are unable to read. Our adult students come from all walks of life and represent all ages, incomes, races, cultures, and communities. Some students dropped out of school to support their family. Others missed obtaining important skills and were too embarrassed to seek help. Some students lacked educational opportunities or interest in learning. Often the adults that we help cannot read street signs, sign a check, read the warning label on a prescription bottle, read a newspaper, complete a job application or read to their children.

We are continuing to provide individual and small group tutoring to any adult who needs our help. As you will see in this newsletter, we are introducing the computer as a tool for our tutors to use with their students. It has also been extremely effective not just in increasing reading levels but in building self-esteem and confidence. We currently have three technology sites, Mashpee High School, Barnstable High School and Nauset Regional High School. Students and tutors meet weekly using software specially designed for adults learning to read.

You can support our technology literacy program as well as our other adult reading programs by entering a team in our Tenth Annual Cape Cod Literacy Council Spelling Bee. Plan to be with us in 2001as a member of a team or as a spectator! Call 508-771-0211 for more information.

Hope to see you there ...

Meet Catherine Brannigan, our Volunteer Coordinator!

Catherine's duties as the Council's Volunteer Coordinator are many and varied. Her primary focus is to see that volunteers are recruited, trained and matched with adult students needing a tutor in a one-on-one situation, in a class sponsored by the Adult Learning Center of Cape Cod Community College, or one of the Council's other literacy programs.

Our workshops, taught by Catherine, are held monthly, both in the morning and evening. They consist of 18 hours of training in English as a Second Language, sensitivity training to the needs of adult learners, and software technology as well as methods of teaching reading.

Catherine is responsible for interviewing potential learners and matching them with trained volunteers. After the learners and tutors are matched she continues to offer assistance by helping with curriculum development.

Catherine is the one to talk to if you are intersted in becoming a tutor, or if you know of someone who might want to be tutored.

Who are our students?
They are store clerks, retired people, fishermen, young parents, school dropouts and high school graduates. They are people who have had to memorize mountains of oral information all of their lives in order to keep their secret. Finally, they came forward, sought help and, fortunately, we were there to help them.

Carl and Bonnie Turngren review text and lessons at their weekly "class".

Several area businesses have established education programs at the worksite for their employees. The Workplace Literacy program has proven to be extremely popular with business owners and with the employees.

Our English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Program is steadily growing. Many of the students are highly educated, trained professionals from foreign countries who simply lack proficiency in English. Others are people who are illiterate in their primary language. Both groups share the same objective - to speak, read and write in English.

Dianna Worthington and Wu work on English lessons together.

Who are our tutors?
They are people who love books. They know the great and glorious adventures that exist between the covers of a book. Beyond that, they recognize the burden that society carries when a substantial portion of the population is illiterate.

What does it mean to be able to read?
Everytime you pick up a newspaper or magazine, read the warning labels on your prescriptions, open a birthday card or letter from a friend, STOP and just for a minute - think how different your life would be if you could not read.

How can you help us achieve our goal?
The finest legacy we can leave to those who come after us is a gift that makes the world better for our having been there. If you have a few hours a month and want to male Cape Cod better for your having been here, volunteer your time to the Cape Cod Literacy Council. We hold volunteer training workshops regularly,provide the teaching materials for your tutoring sessions, match you with students and work with you throughout the sessions to assure success.

Cape Cod Literacy Council has a mission:
To assure that every adult on Cape Cod will be literate.

If your free time is at a premium, you can still help the Cape Cod Literacy Council with your tax deductible contribution to us. It costs $750 to conduct a tutor-training workshop and $150 to tutor one adult for a year. You can sponsor a tutor training workshop, underwrite a single student or make a general contribution to the Cape Cod Literacy Council.

Designed & Hosted by