Kids can learn to read via native language  | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it

Read for Life gets grants for bilingual books

Kids can learn to read via native language
By JEANNIE WILEY WOLF
jeanniewolf@thecourier.com

Sep 07, 2024 7:00 AM

FINDLAY — Read for Life is now able to give students the opportunity to hear books being read in both English and their native language.

Coordinator Kristy Szkudlarek said adults in the program are able to check out books and hear them read at home. If they have children, they can then read them the books.

“I think it helps especially hearing the language, hearing English, and then understanding it," she said. "And it’s a great plus that it’s also in their language so they can understand it and put their words to our words.”

She said the organization received a $4,935 Hancock Reads grant from the Findlay-Hancock County Community Foundation to create the talking book collection. Language Lizard and VOX books are both included, she said. These have attached devices that readers can press to play the story as often as they like. A few of the books can also be read using a phone, she said.

 

In addition to English, available languages include Arabic, Spanish, Haitian-Creole, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian and Ukrainian. They were selected, according to Szkudlarek, because people who speak these languages are students in the program.

The books have been circulating for the past month or two.

Two additional grants — a $9,000 Dollar General Adult Literacy Grant and a $16,345 Community Foundation grant — provided Intercambio Confidence and Connections workbooks for the Language for Life class and the organizations outreach partners, Szkudlarek said.

“We have such a huge population of folks wanting to learn English and to read and write, we have literacy outreach partners in various locations around Findlay," she said. "So the library trains the tutors and then the locations have a class once a week.”

Some of these classes include Haitian-Creole focused at Mission Possible and Spanish at Gateway Church, Church of the Living God and St. Andrew's United Methodist Church.

The workbooks were developed to offer practical English language acquisition for adults, and each lesson includes listening activities, vocabulary words and images, pronunciation activities, grammar practice and real-life conversations.

“If a partner organization says we have five new students, I have books to give them,” she said.

A box goes along with the books and may include items such as play money to practice making change, dice for learning numbers, and pretend fruits and vegetables.

“These are lessons in the very first book,” said Szkudlarek. “All of these things go with that very first book so the tutors can actually show them and it’s not just pictures.”

The items are already in use at some of the locations, she said. There is no cost to the students to attend these classes.

“They can go through one book and go to the next book and the next book and the next book,” she said.

Since some of the students are not able to attend class at its given time, tutors work with them.

"There’s a need and people are seeing that there’s a need,” she said. “And if you have one hour a week, that’s all it takes really.”

Szkudlarek is a certified trainer and provides instruction to the tutors. The next Read for Life tutor training session will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday in the Lindamood Room at the library. Lunch is provided.

If a volunteer is interested in working one-on-one with a partner organization, they can make an appointment with Szkudlarek, who will take them through a condensed training specific to the curriculum being used.

“But I’m always needing more tutors to help with the students that can’t come to these classes or are working on their high school equivalency or they’re just learning to read and don’t fit into the English as a Second Language classes,” she said. "There are all different types of needs."

September and January seem to be the busiest months for the program, she said.

"I don’t know if it's summer is over and they all come back or it's a New Year’s resolution to do this kind of thing. So I’m hoping for a good crowd,” said Szkudlarek.

“Grants are amazing to keep the program moving forward,” she added. “But the volunteer effort is really what we need now.”

Read for Life has provided adult literacy education in the community for over 35 years. The past 11 of those have been under the umbrella of the library. Read for Life recently moved into the former circulation workroom near the front door there.

To register for tutor training, send an email to Szkudlarek at readforlife@findlaylibrary.org.