New Methods to Advance Literacy in Washington: 90,000 Adults in DC are Functionally Illiterate

Charmaine Miller

At the Thurgood Marshall Center at the District’s historic Twelfth Street YMCA, power tools are whirring, hammers are pounding, and students are learning. The adult students that step into Washington Literacy Center to learn to read don’t mind a little sawdust.

The literacy center, founded in 1963, has undergone a few changes in recent months to improve its program. The center moved from a condominium basement to its current home last March. The renovation process was started soon after. The curriculum used to teach the students has also changed, said executive director Terry Algire.

After a thorough analysis of its program in 2010, the center adopted a new module of teaching called the Wilson Reading System. This year will be the center’s pilot year in trying the program.

The Wilson Reading System places a heavy focus on systematic and multisensory ways of teaching phonics and vocabulary.

“[Reading] has to become automatic, and that’s what we’re trying to work on,” Algire said.

The Washington Literacy Center offers classes in the morning, afternoon and evening, two days a week. Enrollment numbers are up to 100. These students tend to be in their early 40s, English speakers often with dyslexia or other auditory or visual disorders.

Algire said about 30 percent of the students have completed high school.

Most students take classes with the center for an average of three years. Algire would like to push them through the program in less than two years, before students’ priorities change and motivation wanes. According to Algire, 90,000 adults in D.C. are functionally illiterate, which means their reading skills are so low that they can’t complete a job application.

Some of the students identify themselves as homeless.

Algire said the center likes to focus its efforts on students with “not only the greatest literacy needs, but also employment challenges.”

The program has helped students find jobs or earn their General Educational Development (GED) diplomas, Algire said. She recounted the story of one graduate who had been raised in a home with books that no one could read. The student grew up and similarly filled her house with books she couldn’t read. Now through the program, she has been able to break the cycle and read those books to her children.

Many of the students are working, said program manager Bryan Verstegen. The goal is to help them move up. “Our orientation is to keep people sustaining themselves,” Verstegen said.

The program has moved 53 graduates through in the last two years, since an official graduation program was instituted. The students move at different paces, but the center is seeing an increasing number of students sticking with and completing the program.

In the midst of the center’s various overhauls, Verstegen remarked how exciting it is to see the students adapting so well. “What I have seen has been very positive,” Verstegen said.


Issues |Education


Region |Washington DC

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