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If You Can Read This, You Can Help.

Tutors Needed

Literacy Outreach serves functionally illiterate adults throughout Garfield County. Our clients possess literacy skills below the fourth grade level. For example, a functionally illiterate adult is unable to fill out an employment application, follow written instructions, or read a newspaper.

All of our students have immediate needs which require literacy. The top six stated needs are communicating with a child's teacher, completing a job application, getting a job, improving job status, raising self-esteem, and knowing more about the community in order to facilitate integration. As the world changes, demands on individuals, families, and businesses increase. Our students understand that literacy skills are crucial to economic survival in the valley and the changing world.

In Garfield County, basic literacy services are needed for two populations: adults with limited or no English proficiency and adults lacking basic reading, math, or writing skills in any language. Children from these homes enter school with serious deficits due to functional illiteracy among the adult population. Their presence strains school districts already suffering from financial problems. Frequently, children from non-literate families drop out or end up in trouble with the law.

In 1998 a study by the National Center for Education Statistics showed that maternal education level is the key predictor of a child's reading achievement. A parent's literacy skills are passed on to the offspring, affecting their children's ability to perform in school and become productive members of their community. Thirty-three percent of the babies born in Garfield County in 2005 were born to mothers without a high school education, a statistic that has held true for several years. This number continues to rise steadily in Garfield County. Eighty percent of Literacy Outreach's adult students are parents. Clearly, providing literacy skills to these adults is an investment in the future of the community. Consequently, Literacy Outreach's mission continues to be adult education.

Literacy Outreach
Pass the Word

413 9th Street
Glenwood Springs, CO 81601
(Located in the lower level of the Glenwood Springs Branch Library)
970-945-5282
mfredendall@rof.net