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Literacy
Volunteers of
Fulton County
199 South Main St.
Gloversville, NY
12078-4223
Phone: (518) 725-1440
Fax: (518) 773-8202
email: lvfc@fmsworkforcesolutions.org
www.fultonliteracy.org
Office Hours
Mon-Thurs 9-3
Also by Appt.
Staff
Donna Hunter - Executive Director
Melissa Kenyon -Program Director
Eric Christensen - Training
Coordinator
Board of Directors:
Laurie Bargstedt
Charlene Cornachia
Maurice Farhart
Ellen Williams
Cheryl Peeler
Gene Reppenhagen
Judy Fitzpatrick-Pile
Newsletter Staff
Editors - Terry Conaway, Eric Christensen
Layout/Graphics - Autumn Blanchard
Welcome
Melissa Kenyon was hired at the end of July to fill the position left
vacant at Literacy Volunteers of Fulton County. If you haven't already
spoken with her on the phone, give her a call or stop down to the office
to meet our new addition.
Congratulations to Our Tutor Training Graduates
Fall 2003
Micheal Brace
Ray Conte
Loreatta Elias
Richard Crane
Beth Ann Forest
Christy Gifford
Sheila Mcdonald
Spring 2004
Elise Pasqualino
Eileen Wrightsman
Bonnie Wilder
Marget Barnett
Molly Johson
Pamela Flinton
Angela Lewandowski
Fall 2004
Autumn Blanchard
Donald Boyle
Terry Conaway
Kitty Ingalls
Judith Zarin
Sayyed Mumin
Calendar
Save These Dates
September
22-Tutor Orientation
25- Tutor Training
October
26- Board Meeting
27- Open House and Inservice
November
13- Tutor Training 23-Board Meeting
December
Happy Holidays
January 2005
Cabin Fever get
together, Date to be announced
February
16-Tutor Inservice
Happy Valentineís Day
March
7-8 Legislative Days
April
20- Tutor Inservice
May
16-20 Literacy Conference @ White Eagle, in Hamilton NY
June
8- Tutor-Student Dinner
17-Brooks BBQ at Wal-mart
27 -Annual Board Meeting
Tutor Tips
If you have any tips that you would like to share with others Please contact
the office at 725-1440 and we will publish them in the next newsletter.
Community Awareness
Would you help us become more visible in our area? We at Literacy Volunteers
would like to get our program more recognized in our community. If you
have any ideas on how we might do this, please call the office at 725-1440.
Leave a message if no one answers.
Send Us Email
Please send the office an email so we can update our email list. Or call
the office at 725-1440 to let us know if your email has changed. Our email
address is lvfulton@klink.net.
We also have a website being developed by Autumn Blanchard and Melissa
Kenyon. the address is fultonliteracy.org Go visit the site and let the
office know what it needs or what you would like it to include.
Mission Statement
Literacy Volunteers of Fulton County, Inc. recognizes that literacy,
including reading, writing,and speaking English, computing, and problem
solving is necessary to function on the job, in society, and to raise
a family. Literacy is also necessary to achieve individual goals and to
develop knowledge and potential. Literacy is valuable to develop and function
as citizens, to realize rights and freedoms and to fulfill responsibilities
as members of a free society. Therefore, it is the mission of Literacy
Volunteers of Fulton County, Inc. to develop and support volunteer resources
to serve adults and families of the Fulton County area and to provide
services consistent with increasing literacy and promoting the value of
Literacy
to the future of the Fulton County area. Adopted May 22, 2000.
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Library
Tutoring Resources
"The whole library is a tutoring place, as far as I'm
concerned," is how Gloversville Free Library Director,
Edie Wilcox, views the public facility located at 58 E. Fulton
Street in Gloversville.
To further this purpose, Edie formed a conglomerate of educational
and social agencies three years ago to secure funding for
a G.E.D. tutoring program. Their cooperative efforts have
created a user friendly space loaded with useful materials
for both students and tutors.
The main work area, the Friends of the Library room, has been
outfitted with book shelves, desks and conference tables.
The various instructional materials for G.E.D. and literacy
tutoring include a video monitor, VCR, videos, workbooks,
teacher's guides, culturegrams, and much more. Next door,
the Carnegie room has a computer projector for multi-media
presentations.
And of particular use to LV-FC tutors is a Literacy Toolkit,
which according to Edie is "from another literacy grant,
we've had that for awhile, it's a wonderful thing; it kind
of fits right in with everything else we're doing here."
This combined collection of learning materials and electronics
creates a
powerful teaching resource for students and tutors. "This
room does have a lot of material through the G.E.D. funding
that is available to LV tutors...to meet the needs of not
only the G.E.D. students, but also the LV students.
The Friends of the Library room also serves as a computer
lab, outfitted with six Hewlett-Packard Pentium laptop computers
hooked up to a high speed internet.
But a lack of modern wiring was an obstacle that had to be
overcome, not an easy task considering the lack of funds.
Edie recalls, "I saw there was a particular need here,
[for a computer lab] because of the fact that we need a good
G.E.D. program, and I knew there was a lot of LV tutoring
going on... and there was an enormous constraint in the building
with a lack of wiring, both electrical and CAT5 computer wiring."
The library came up with a simple but effective solution:
wireless! Edie observes "By going this wireless route
it only required one computer drop to run the whole laptop
lab, and also one electrical outlet, without having to go
through all that expense and trouble." The computers
are well equipped for literacy and language arts tutoring,
according to Edie, with "really good software on them."
A particularly valuable software tool for tutors and students
is "Learning Express - Take a Test," which allows
users to set up individual accounts and take practice tests
that include G.E.D., 4th grade language arts, civil service
exams and many others. Edie finds this program to be a great
evaluation tool: "Anyone wishing to use them, under the
auspices of either the LV tutors or G.E.D. teachers, is certainly
welcome to set up an account. It's a wonderful, useful tool,
which is why I made sure to give little presentations on how
to use that to both groups."
"Another really good piece of software on there is a
good version of Microsoft Word, for the word processing things,
that is a real necessity." But the Library Director also
felt a need for desktop publishing to further students' writing
programs: "We wanted to make sure that they were set
up to enlarge upon any existing programs as the need arose,
so there's also Microsoft Publisher on them...say there was
an interest on the students' part to do some sort of writing
program where they ended up with a really nice publishable
booklet or something. I thought it was important to have the
software there."
The need for these programs and facility is seen in various
demographic statistics, according to Edie, "Usually an
indicator to see if these types of services are needed and
how many are needed is to take a look at the population that
is receiving social services in general, so Fulton County
is pretty needy that way."
In her quest for funding, Edie explored various grant possibilities
and found that most effective options were aimed at schools
in needy areas.
"These grants are very large...and they were made available
due to a need that was seen after testing was done with students...again
that demographic of recipients of social services was in there,
so one requirement was that the school district who was applying
needed to have community partners in order to qualify."
This seemed a perfect match with the library's goal - "I
wanted a really good program, so from day one I decided to
be a community partner for them - Gloversville Enlarged School
District."
The group that produced the room and its resources had expanded
to include LV (LV-FC), Cornell Cooperative Extension, NYS
Dept. of Social Services, and one particularly helpful ally
for Edie, Laurie Bargstedt (HFM BOCES), "she was really
very good about finding or allocating funds for materials.
She was really a wonderful person to work with, for me."
"The hope was that with everyone working together, we
could get something going that would be effective... not only
in identifying problems, but also in creating strategies to
address those problems."
Some LV-FC tutors are already using the library resources.
Executive Director Donna Hunter has taught a group pre-G.E.D.
class there. Group classes require pre-registration at the
library. The facility is also used for tutor training.
The library and the partners in the conglomerate have assembled
a fantastic community educational resource. All LV-FC tutors
are encouraged to check it out and put it to good use in their
tutoring efforts.
Accreditation Process Begins
Literacy Volunteers of Fulton County is currently working through the
initial steps
toward accreditation, under the auspices of ProLiteracy America, a national
accreditation
service for literacy organizations.
The goals of accreditation include increasing the credibility, accountability
and
visibility of literacy organizations in their local communities. Meeting
these goals
enhance the group's capacity to be an effective part of the adult education
system.
Literacy affiliates undergo a six stage process of evaluation, documentation
and
program improvement that takes approximately one year to complete.
In an era of decreased funding for education, accreditation becomes critical
for literacy
affiliates because accredited groups receive a larger share of state and
federal funding.
This funding not only allows the affiliate to provide better programs,
but actually can
make the difference in whether the affiliate can remain operational at
all.
LV-FC is completing the first step in the process, self evaluation. After
this step, the
chapter will formally apply to begin the arduous process of meeting the
specific
managerial and instructional guidelines to move toward full accreditation.
LV-FC is fully committed to providing the highest quality services for
our community.
And we will continue to work toward becoming a nationally accredited literacy
education. provider.
New System of Checks and Balances
We are implementing a new system of checks and balances in our office.
All tutors will be receiving stamped postcards that have to be filled
out by the tutors and then signed by the tutor and the student. The postcards
will include tutor and student names, dates of meetings, length of time
with student, and tutoring location(s).
Tutors will get one postcard per student per month. This will
help office staff to track tutoring hours and help our tutors
to report their hours without worrying about either phoning
the office during business hours, or possibly forgetting to
call. At the Student/Tutor Recognition Dinner, we will award
the student and tutor with the most postcards with a gift
certificate from a local merchant. So send in those postcards!
Stories Wanted
Send in your stories or student writings, have your students
see their works in print. The newsletter will be issued on
a quarterly basis, starting this year. It will have a tutor
section and a student section. It will also highlight the
events of the past quarter and give a rundown on the Board
of Directors. We will also have a coming events section. Photos
can also be included, but please send in copies, as we can't
guarantee the return of original prints. Please tell us who
is in the picture, with a brief explanation. Any ideas are
welcome and help with putting the newsletter together is always
appreciated.
Tutor Training Workshop
On March 12th and 13th, Donna Hunter and Eric Christensen, tutor trainers
and Ray Conti, basic literacy tutor, participated in a Combined Tutor
Training Workshop.
The workshop was held at the Holiday Inn Express in Albany. The instructors
were Donna Gibson and Mary Bartlett, of the Literacy -NY Trainer Corps.
The 24 hour comined Tutor Training is intended to qualify
tutors in both basic literacy and English for speakers of
other languages.
Topic areas included lesson planning, learning styles, cultural
differences, real life material and conversational techniques.
The workshop included sharing of techniques and materials among the affiliate
trainers. There was also discussion of formatting the combination of basic
literacy and ESOL. Participants were provided with a detailed manual of
the combined training.
After some adjustments in lesson plans and materials, Donna and Eric employed
the combined program in a tutor training in April.
Tutor Training Tip
Go Fish
A tutor from Madison, Wisconsin created this game, which is similar to
Go Fish, to help her
English-as-a-second-Language learner with her speaking skills.
She made cards out of index cards and pictures she found in
newspapers, magazines, and catalogs. She chose items that
were familiar to her learner. There were four cards for each
item (four dogs, four trees,etc.) and a total of 48 cards.
Each Person starts out with five cards, and the remaining cards are put
in the center of the
draw pile. The first player asks the second player,"Do you have any
dogs?" for example. If the second player is holding that card, she
responds. "Yes, I have one dog" The first player then says,"Please
give me the dog."
If the second player does not have that card, she says."No,
I do not have any dogs." Then the first player takes
a card from the pile. The players go back and forth. As the
players accumulates pairs of cards, they set them in separate
piles. The game ends when one of the players uses all of his/her
cards. The player with the most pairs wins.
This article was reprinted from the Leering Connection, Winter
2002 Issue, Published by the Madison Area Literacy Council.
Used With Permission.
LVFC Ready for Required New State Test
The"Best Plus" test is designed to both assess the progress
and establish the placement of
ESOL students. The State Education Department(SED), in accordance with
accountability
provisions of the National Reporting System (NRS), has mandated
the use of the Best Plus test as an oral assessment tool in
all SED funded ESOL programs to be administered by July 1st.
Best Plus is a fifteen minute performance based test that
allows ESOL students to demonstrate their oral proficiency
in Listening Comprehension, language complexity, and communication.
In comprehension, students demonstrate whether they understand
a question asked of them.
In language complexity, students show their ability to use appropriate
phrases and grammatical structures in generating oral sentences. The communication
section measures a students fluency.
The Best Plus test is administered using a laptop computer.
The examiner asks the student the first question and using
a rubix score sheet to evaluate that answer and enters the
score into the computer, which then selects the next item,
based on that response, from its bank of 250 questions. A
higher-level student receives a more difficult question while
a lower-level student gets an easier one.This method takes
fewer questions to accurately determine each student's level.
We are proud to say that we have received the mandated state training
and have ordered the
computerized testing materials. Anyone interested in becoming
a tester should call the office at 725-1440 for more information.
We can always use another examiner.
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