Illustration via Getty Images
March may be National Reading Month, but literacy is always the focus at The READ Center, a local nonprofit that helps adults acquire and expand skills they need for personal and professional success. With an estimated 73,000 Richmonders lacking basic literacy skills, there’s plenty of work to be done.
“Every important social issue is impacted by low literacy: health, poverty, parenting, housing, education, civic engagement and employment,” READ Center Program Manager Nausha Brown Chavez says. “Building fundamental reading, writing, math and digital skills gives people the power to find and keep sustainable employment, lower health care costs, increase their earnings, and lift themselves out of poverty. These literacy skills help people improve their self-confidence and self-sufficiency and, ultimately, change their lives.”
Founded in 1982 as the Literacy Council of Metropolitan Richmond by Altrusa International Richmond Inc. — a professional businesswomen’s service club — The READ Center provides free one-on-one and group instruction to adults who read below a seventh-grade level. Students are assessed when they enter the program and typically start in classes that meet twice a week for two hours. Students reading at the fourth-grade level or above have the option of working privately with a tutor and must commit to meeting at least once a week for two hours. During the 2019-20 school year, nearly 150 students received instruction through the center.
READ Center Program Manager Nausha Brown Chavez (Photo courtesy Nausha Brown Chavez)
Research indicates that 100-150 hours of instruction, on average, are needed to advance a single reading level. In addition to their class time, READ Center students often have the added demands of work and family, which means it’s impossible to predict how long a student will take classes with the center.
“It depends on where that student is and where the particular goal is; it may take months, or it may take years,” Chavez says. “We might have someone come in and say their main focus is to learn how to fill out reports, for a job promotion. That may not take them a long time, because even if they are [reading] on a seventh-grade level, they have skills that are much higher than [those of] a seventh-grade student.”
Asa, a student who has attended classes at The READ Center since 2018, holds a Virginia Modified Standard Diploma, which is intended for students who have a disability and are unlikely to meet the credit requirements for a standard diploma. Asa says he came to The READ Center because his reading skills were “nonexistent” and he wants to attend college.
In addition to time spent with his READ Center instructor and volunteer tutor, Asa works on his own at home, studying psychology, anatomy and math. “I’m very strong in the science field,” he says, noting that he just “aced” a test on the brain.
READ Center teacher Janet Sodell and volunteer tutor Gene Ledlie take part in a Zoom lesson with a student. (Image courtesy Janet Sodell)
In March 2020, when the pandemic prevented in-person meetings, teacher Janet Sodell devised a plan to keep tutors in touch with students through twice-weekly phone calls. Now, a few group classes are also being held online, via Zoom, with breakout rooms where tutors and students can meet for direct instruction, just as it would happen if everyone were together.
“We wanted to keep the learning going forward, or at least not going backward,” she says. “Every student has their own personality, their own learning style, their own processing system — all of us do. There’s nothing wrong with how students learn; the problem is how they were taught. They weren’t taught the way that helps them learn best.”
Volunteer tutor Gene Ledlie, a retired accountant who has taught for the University of Phoenix online and at a local community college, says he appreciates how The READ Center’s training covered teaching students at varying skill levels.
“I’ve become a one-on-one tutor, and I really enjoy it,” he says. “I think I was [initially] afraid of doing that, but I’m not afraid anymore. This has been really eye-opening and really gratifying work.”
Asa says he enjoys working with Ledlie. “When he corrects me, we have fun with it,” he says. “You’ve got to have fun, or else you’re going to lose your mind.”
There are plenty of challenges, teacher Sodell acknowledges.
“I am awestruck by the courage, the resilience, the dedication these students exhibit because they’re taking time out of their lives to do this, and it’s not easy to learn anything new, let alone on the computer,” she says. “Every student stays until they reach a level where they want to be reading. Many students will come for a while, then leave, then come back, as their life changes.”
But even if progress is interrupted, program director Chavez says it’s important that learning continues.
Literate adults “are not bound by their inability to read and comprehend,” she says. “They are given the freedom to advocate for themselves. Adults can improve their literacy skills, but they have to get the instruction they need.
“Everyone needs and deserves a literate life.”
Never miss a Sunday Story: Sign up for the newsletter, and we’ll drop a fresh read into your inbox at the start of each week. To keep up with the latest posts, search for the hashtag #SundayStory on Twitter and Facebook.
