Northern volunteers help with adult literacy program

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Anyone who has travelled in a foreign land knows how dificult it is to accomplish even the simplest tasks if you cannot read the common language. Even road signs are incomprehensible, leaving you driving around aimlessly, hoping to stumble onto some clue as to where you are, or someone who can guide you.

For many Canadians, this feeling of being in a foreign land is an everyday challenge in their own land, says Linda Wier, who has worked as the part-time co-ordinator of the Program for Adult Literacy (PAL) in Lac La Biche for the past 10 years.

The volunteer-based literacy program is one of 10 in Alberta, funded through the Ministry of Learning. In Lac La Biche the program typically helps 20 to 30 adults a year to aquire or improve reading, writing, and math skills. The ages of people identified as needing help ranges from 18 to 20, and typically about 25 per cent of them are Native, Wier said.

Wier added, however, that people who seek help from PAL usually are in their 30s or 40s. "They are at the point where their kids need help in school, or they want to advance their career opprotunities." The formal education of many of these people ended at Grade 8.

One of the first steps taken by the volunteer tutors is to work on establishing self-esteem in the person needing help with literacy, said Wier. The stigma of illiteracy is strong, even though illiteracy appears to be widespread.

Asked to provide statistics on the problem of adult illiteracy, Wier said the studies that have been done present contradictory findings, but point to a problem that is broader in the Native population than in the general population in Canada.

Federal government statistics from 1994 for the Beaver River federal riding in northeastern Alberta indicate that 57 per cent of adults can handle every degree of difficulty in reading and writing for everyday purposes. That includes reading this newspaper.

A study by the Ontario Native Literacy Coalition presents more alarming figures; they show that 45 per cent of Natives in that province are functionally illiterate and could not read this newspaper even at a very slow pace. This compares to 17 per cent of the Canadian population.

These high numbers may not be reflected in the Native population in northeastern Alberta, Wier said, but they certainly point to a problem. We just don't know how big that problem really is.

In a country with universal education that prides itself as being among the world elite in the computer age, how does this happen? And more importantly, how do we as a society correct it?

One answer is volunteer literacy organizations such as PAL, but that only seems to only touch the surface. Another answer may be increased funding to assess and deal with a problem society seems willing to ignore.

Wier says she finds it ironic that there is funding to hire teachers to tutor immigrants learning English, but no funding for Canadian-born adults who have a first or primary language other than French or English.

Volunteer tutors for PAL work one-on-one with adults, and are given 10 hours of basic training in how to teach reading, writing or mathematics. If anyone wants tutoring through PAL in the Lac La Biche area, or wants to become a volunteer tutor, telephone Wier at 780-623-2477.