Change for Illiteracy

For two blog posts I have talked about the problem. Illiteracy. However, this time, I am talking about the solution. What we can do to make this problem disappear. As my teacher calls it, this is the "Post for Change."

After my previous blog post I decided to email a woman I know named Monica Carnesi.  She is an author and illustrator who works at the Free Library of Philadelphia. I gained contact with her from a mutual friend named Marion, who also works at the free library. As I was emailing both of them I got some new information.

There is another program that helps with this problem of illiteracy. It's called R.E.A.D.  This program helps mostly with children who are struggling to learn these skills. They have trained dogs come in to sit with these children. The children the read out loud to the dogs. The purpose of this exercise is to give the children the confidence they need to read aloud as well as the practice to do it well.

I believe that change starts from the newest parts. In my case, the youngest generation. I found that kids are the ones most likely to change this pattern. That to stop the problem we have to stop it early on.

To help with this I went to a building called the Friends Welcome Center. The night before I had called the director of a part of this building called FCCC, (Friends Child Care Center). She invited me to come in one day after school and read to some of the younger kids. While I was there I could tell that the kids were excited about the book. They would point things out in the pictures, and shout out what they thought would happen next. It made me smile, to see all these kids so excited about books.

It's wonderful, and extremely easy to help the next generation to get excited about reading. If it's simply reading to a younger sibling or cousin. Or going as complicated as I did and going out to a preschool to join into story time. Everything helps.
To view my first blog post click here
To view my second bog post click here
To view my bibliography click here

Comments (1)

Nia Hammond (Student 2015)
Nia Hammond

The video was really good, all that hard work! I think that your working to help children to become more literate is good, because you're right, it does start with children, because adults may not even want to be able to read and write at their age, even though they don't know how useful it is. Good job :D