Getting Your Literacy Program Ready for the New Year

As your start the new year, it is a good time to step back and take a look at how well you are managing your volunteer literacy program.

Here is a checklist of things to consider:

1. How effective is your initial and ongoing tutor training? What works and what needs improving? What is one change you can easily make to improve the program?

2. After matching, are you spending enough time with tutors and students to ensure all is going well? For example:
Do you have regular contact with matched pairs to see how things are going? Do you have volunteers (former tutors, students, teachers, etc.) calling, emailing or texting each tutor and each student to check in. Students calling students is a good way for students to give back and to really find out how instruction is working?

3. Are you using administrative volunteers? This job is good for those who can't give weekly but can come in a day a month or two or three days every quarter in between their travels.

4. Are your forms up to date? Have you reviewed your program's policies within the last two or three years to see if they are still effective?

5. Are you adding new technologies to your program that will benefit students? Do you have a couple of volunteers who are taking the lead on this? Do you do targeted advertising to find volunteers with specific skills needed in your program?

The Citrus County Public Library is one of our many Florida libraries that provide direct instruction. Take a look at their web page to learn more. They have a handout to help tutors get started. If you program has something similar, please share examples with us. Email the link or the handout to valflorida@hotmail.com.

VALF provides a program management workshop for members. Email valforida@hotmail.com if you would like to host a workshop in your area.

Happy New Year to all ....
From the VALF Board...   Thanks for all you do...

Library Grant Opportunity

Grant Opportunity for Innovation

Sparks Ignition Grants are due to the Institute of Museum and Library Services by February 2, 2015. These small grants of $10,000 to $25,000 are to encourage libraries and archives to test and evaluate specific innovations. They can support deployment, testing and evaluation of promising and groundbreaking new tools, products, services or organizational practices. Identified problems should be relevant to many libraries and include significant innovation. For more information go to their website and sign up for the webinar on Tuesday, January 6, at 4 pm ET.

Want to know more about IMLS 2015 grant opportunities, read their guide.

We have no idea of what might be considered innovative in the context of adult literacy and libraries, but here are some ideas to help you start thinking

• Set up a reading better program targeting adult learners who want to be entrepreneurs or who run their own small business. Provide space in your library for their "virtual" office. Provide volunteers and staff to help them learn to read better while establishing their business

• Find unusual partners, funeral homes, car dealerships, bars and others to recruit volunteer tutors.Take pictures with the staff and ask them to post the pictures with information about your library literacy program on THEIR web page.

• Develop a tutor training program using smart phones and apps as the technology students and tutors could use for adult basic education lessons.

• Provide cooking classes for adult learners where they learn to read better by reading recipes and cooking together. Publish a local cookbook with lessons. Have students take their baked goods to your county commision meeting to thank them for funding your adult literacy program. As part of the program, loan out cooking utensils, recruit chiefs to be involved, partner with local farmers and more.
  
  
  If you have ideas you consider innovative, share them in comments on our blog.
  
  
  
  

Gadsden Tutor Training Workshop

VALF is providing a free tutor training workshop in Quincy at the Gadsden County Public Library this Saturday.  The follow are assignments for tutor trainees to be completed by the 2^nd tutor training day in January. Gadsden County trainees are also asked to view this blog for additional tutoring tips, share their questions and add comments as part of the tutor training.

Basic Reading Tutor Training Assignment

Go to http://literacyfloridavolunteers.blogspot.com to get link for or click on ProLiteracy Ed Net.

Click on link.

At ProLiteracy Ed Net, click on name of class

Click on Register to this class

Click on Log on

Click on Register now

Optional courses

Succeeding as an Online Learner

Orientation to Volunteering in Literacy

A Way With Words: Strategies for Strengthening Adult Learners' Vocabularies

Unleashing Potential through Multi-Intelligent Literacy Instruction

 

Required courses  - 3 out of the 5 courses below

Working With Adult Literacy Learners

Principles of Adult Learning 

Phonemic Awareness Instruction for Adult Literacy Learners

Understanding the Reading Process

Before, During and After -- A Reading Comprehension Technique

Suggestion: If you have not done any online courses, do Succeeding as an Online Learner.

If you need help, please email or call Glenda Norvell – norvell32333@bellsouth.net or 850-539-6285.

Next VALF Board Meeting Tuesday at 7 pm ET

Our recent VALF retreat will be the main topic for our next board meeting on November 11 at 7 pm. Let Sandy Newell sandy.newell@dos.myflorida.com know if you want to come.

Add Your Bookmark

Thank you for placing your Bookmark

Dear Sandy, Thank you for placing your Bookmark! By simply taking the time to do this, you are helping bring attention to the literacy issues in our nation. Did you know? Did you know that in Florida, 64% of children under the age of six have whose parents have less than a high school education live in low-income homes?* This statistic is alarming. Thankfully, the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy is working hard to close the social and economic gap caused by low literacy. By placing your Bookmark, you took an important step in helping bring awareness to this great challenge in America. Now we invite you to share this opportunity with others! Thank you, Liza McFadden *National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP)

OTAN adult education newsletter

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We are pleased to release the Fall 2014 edition of the OTAN Online Connection newsletter, which may be accessed here:
http://www.otan.us/Training/pdfs/newsltr2014/fall2014.pdf
Archived copies of previous OTAN newsletters are available at this link:
http://www.otan.us/aboutus/index.cfm?fuseaction=newsletter&catid=23874
Sincerely,
OTAN Staff
support@otan.us
1-800-894-3113

The OTAN Staff

Workforce Innovation Potential Funding Opportunity --webinar October 20, 10 am CDT

On October 27, 2014, the American Library Association will join the Department of Education and the Department of Labor in hosting “$2.2 Billion Reasons to Pay Attention to WIOA,” an interactive webinar that will explore ways that public and community college libraries can receive funding for employment skills training and job search assistance from the recently-passed Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014. Registration for the event will open Monday, Oct 20, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. CDT. Space is limited.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act allows public and community colleges to be considered additional One-Stop partners a

ProLiteracy Conference Proposals Due Dec 14

	ProLiteracy’s Conference on Adult Literacy CALL FOR PROPOSALS Deadline: December 19, 2014 Proposal Submission Form From October 15-18, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, ProLiteracy’s Conference on Adult Literacy will bring together a dynamic group of individuals and organizations that are committed to responding to the literacy and education needs of the nation and the world. With the tremendous success of our past conferences and with your ongoing input, we've designed our 2015 national conference around the most pressing issues facing our field today—from technology to fundraising; from instruction to advocacy; from citizenship to GED/HSE preparation; and much more! All the while, we're keeping costs more affordable than ever in a beautiful, historic location with much to see and do. The ProLiteracy Conference planning team is looking for presentations that share proven successful strategies and practical tools for adult literacy instruction, program management and leadership, and advocacy. All proposals must be submitted by December 19, 2014. Proposal selection will begin thereafter. If you have questions, please contact the ProLiteracy conference team at conference@proliteracy.org.
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VALF Board Agenda October 14

Agenda, October 14,  Tuesday 7 pm

Minutes

Treasurers & Membership Report

Presidents Report

Retreat Report & Agree on Next Steps: Jim Wilder

VALF Grant Opportunity --due December 1 --DEADLINE EXTENDED TO DEC 15

VALF will be awarding another round of grants in 2015 to Florida's volunteer literacy programs. Go to the application to learn more.

This year we are providing our members a two-step process. A draft application is due on December 1 with a final application due in March. You must turn in the draft and a revised application in March to be considered.

In between, Jim Wilder, a VALF board member will provide technical assistance to help you prepare a more competitive grant.  This special opportunity is to help you gain grant writing skills.

Grant Opportunity for Libraries - due October 13

Deadline extended to Oct. 13 to apply for The American Dream Starts @ your library grant funding

Grants available to libraries to fund programs and resources for adult English language learners in Dollar General communities

CHICAGO – Monday, October 13 is the new deadline for libraries to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 to support programs aimed at enhancing adult literacy through The American Dream Starts @ your library® initiative. 

The American Dream Starts @ your library® is administered through the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Literacy and Outreach Services and has provided funding to over 100 libraries across the United States since 2008. Public libraries interested in improving services to English language learners through holding classes, tutor training, expanding collections, purchasing technology or improving public awareness are invited to apply. These grants mark the fourth round of grants made possible through funding from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, which has renewed its commitment to the initiative through a $327,512 grant to ALA.

To be eligible for funding, the applicant institution must be a public library, or a public library with a bookmobile providing literacy services for adult English language learners, and must be within 20 miles of a Dollar General store, distribution center or corporate office.

October is Health Literacy Month. There are many resources available on health. The Florida Literacy Coalition has a health literacy curriculum that can be downloaded or print copies can be ordered.

GCF Learns Fun Reading Lessons

GCF Learns is a free, yes I said FREE!, online site to learn basic reading and speaking skills. You can learn other skills too, like microsoft products. The basic reading site focuses on 1,000 words with a variety of activities for different learning styles. It has a section for ELL and another for basic reading.

If your student is comfortable with games, he or she will like the reading game activities. This site is available on a smart phone. This means students can learn on the go, standing in line or waiting in the car to pick up their child and more.

Many lessons include video and/or audio. A student can use it even if they have lower reading skills. There is even a lesson on how to bake a cake.