Memo from the Literacy Support Center
July 2004
Important Dates
Announcements
Verizon-ProLiteracy
Verizon Literacy Campus (formerly Verizon Literacy University) is America Regional Trainings:
now online at www.literacycampus.org. Along with the new name, With support from Verizon,
the site has some new features, including a search tool and some ProLiteracy America is
new course offerings. The free online courses are designed to help sponsoring a training in Roanoke
train potential and existing volunteers, as well as literacy program at the Clarion Hotel, August 6-7.
staff. Individual registration fees for
each two-day training program
are $35 for ProLiteracy America
The Dollar General Charitable Contributions Program supports affiliates and $50 for non-
nonprofit organizations that contribute to the advancement of literacy affiliates. Download
and basic education in communities where the company’s stores are announcements and registration
located. The Community Grants Program provides support for forms on the Resource Center
nonprofit organizations committed to the advancement of youth website at www.aelweb.vcu.edu/,
literacy initiatives. The next application deadline for Community or check the nationwide schedule
Grants is September 5, 2004. For more information visit on the ProLiteracy Worldwide
www.dollargeneral.com/community/communityinvestments.aspx. website at:
www.proliteracy.org/reg.
IRS Alert: (From the July 2004 ProLiteracy Network News Bulletin) Barbara Bush
“…we want to alert you to a new warning issued by the IRS about Foundation Grants
voter education. Not-for-profit organizations classified as 501(c)3 are
prohibited from participating or intervening in any political
Applications for the 2005
campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for
National Grant Competition
public office”. Prohibited activities may include simply thanking a
are now available online at:
candidate publicly for his or her support of your program during an
election campaign. Penalties for engaging in prohibited campaign www.barbarabushfoundation.
activities can include the possible loss or reclassification of your com/nga.html.
501(c) 3 status. You must be very careful about endorsing, or
appearing to endorse, any candidate for office during an election If you would like a hard copy of
campaign. However, this does not preclude you from educating the 2005 National Grant Cycle
political candidates in your community about your program, or even Application instead:
fasking them to articulate their literacy positions and sharing those
positions with literacy stakeholders in your community. Be sure that Email your request to
you let your stakeholders form their own conclusions, however. And plimjap@cfncr.org. Please
be sure to thank [the candidates] publicly for their support as much make sure to include your
as possible when the election is over! organization's full name and
mailing address
Cisco Systems has a new site where nonprofits can request Mail your written request
volunteers from among Cisco's thousands of employees to The Barbara Bush
worldwide. Volunteers from this technology company can help with Foundation for Family
technology, marketing, human resources, and “virtual volunteering” Literacy
th
such as review of written material for a website, advising on 1201 15 Street, NW
business strategy, and technical troubleshooting over the phone. Suite 420
Visit http://cisco.com/en/US/about/index.html, and click on Washington, DC 20005
Community and Philanthropy.
Outreach, July 04 2
Program News
"Getting to Work: A Report on How Workers with Limited English Skills Can Prepare for Good
Jobs." This report is published by the Working for America Institute (AFL-CIO), which undertook some
initial research into the state of practice in eight programs that seek to help workers with limited English
proficiency (LEP) get and keep good jobs. The report concludes that we must help immigrants and
refugees get and keep the best possible jobs while they continue to gain greater English fluency
instead of waiting until they have mastered English. Found at www.workingforamerica.org
“A Human Capital Concern: the Literacy Proficiency of U.S. Immigrants" from the Center for
Global Assessment of the Policy Information Center at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) can be
found at www.ets.org/research/pic/humancapital.pdf. This second in a series of monographs using
data from the NALS and the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) focuses on the literacy
proficiencies of the nation's immigrant foreign born and compares their performance not only
with adults born in the U.S., but with their foreign-born counterparts in other high-income
countries around the world. "Literacy and Health in America" also published by ETS, focuses on
issues surrounding literacy and health. The authors identified 191 tasks and then used them to create a
Health Activities Literacy Scale (HALS) that was then linked back to the NALS database.
Database on Nonprofit Capacity Building Grows: The Encino-based Human Interaction Research
Institute, a nonprofit that promotes the exchange and use of information about capacity building, has
announced that it has added forty profiles to its Philanthropic Capacity-Building Resources database,
bringing to 318 the number of programs included in the database. The database, which is free to users,
helps nonprofits, researchers, and providers of capacity-building services to identify new
approaches to capacity building or gather information about potential funding sources. New
listings are added regularly. The project has received funding from the Knight, Kauffman, Bruner, and
Meyer foundations, and counts the Benton Foundation as a non-funding partner. From: Philanthropy
and Voluntarism, June 24, 2004, Philanthropy News Digest, The Foundation Center at:
http://fdncenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=72500051.
INITIAL INTAKE TIP
From Heide Wrigley (nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov June 2004):
“What I usually do as part of an initial assessment is to provide a range of materials, including
bills, lottery tickets, supermarket flyers, Avon catalogues, ads with text from magazines, first
person stories written by and for new readers, an easy short story and USA Today and then ask
students to pick a few things that they would like to try to read together. If the learner picks a
functional text, I ask what it is and then ask questions about items and prices and slowly invite
the person to try something a bit harder. (I learned about this idea first from Susan Lytle)
If the person picks a prose piece, we start reading it together and I see if she feels comfortable
reading a bit of it aloud - and then we talk about it. If there's time, we talk about reading
practices and interests. This approach gives me a sense of proficiency in sub skills such
as decoding, reading interest, and some measure of comprehension. But most
importantly it gives me a chance to get to know the person on a one-on-one basis.
This model (which we first used in the What Works ESL study and which I've subsequently used
with immigrant elders in Chicago and with teenage struggling readers in Vancouver - for the
most part Canadian born) could also be adapted to use in a classroom with small groups.”
Literacy Support Center Website: www.aelweb.vcu.edu/literacy_support_center/ email: vjsanbor@vcu.edu