Literacy program returns
SOUDERTON >> English as a Second Language, adult education, parenting education, interactive literacy and early childhood education are all part of Keystone Opportunity Center’s Family Literacy program.
“Literacy overall is hugely important to being able to sustain your family, being able to have enough money to support yourself and your relatives,” said Keystone Executive Director Arlene Daily.
The program is for pre-kindergarten age children and their parents or other family members,
such as a grandparent or uncle or aunt who is a caregiver for the child, to learn together, Susan Clauser, Keystone’s director of adult education, said.
“This program has proven to increase children’s test scores in school, as increasing a child’s exposure to language and engaging parents as a partner in the education of their children has profound and long-lasting effects on the child, the family, and the community,” Keystone information says.
Keystone offered the program for a number of years, then during the 2017-18 school year was going through a transition in leadership and grant funding, so Souderton Mennonite Church stepped in to provide a version of the program for that year, Daily said.
“They didn’t want to see it stop while we were trying to get it picked up again,” Daily said. “The pastors over there were super supportive and helpful and such amazing partners that they were able to keep it going for a year while we were able to seek the funding to be able to continue it.”
Keystone has received private funding for the program and is now again holding it; the classes are held at Souderton Mennonite Church, she said.
Most of the families taking part in the program live in the Souderton Area or North Penn school districts, Clauser said.
Many of the young children in the program aren’t learning English at home, she said.
“They’re learning their native language, but when they come to Family Literacy, they’re being exposed to English,” she said.
The program helps prepare the children for kindergarten, she said.
“The ultimate goal would be that they can enter kindergarten with little or no ESL support,” she said.
Although the classes for this school year have already started, other families can still join, she said.
“We’ve had about 12 adults come through and about eight children” after the first few classes, she said.
This year’s goal is to serve about 15 families, she said. When the program was funded by the state and there was a larger staff, about 36 to 40 families per year were served, and the goal is to get back to that
level, she said.
Students in this year’s classes include ones whose native language is Chinese and Korean, Clauser said.
There are also ones from Algeria who speak Arabic and French in addition to their native language and some from the Congo who speak French in addition to their native dialect, she said.
Information about the Family Literacy program is available at KeystoneOpportunity.org/education/ family-literacy or by calling 267-663-1001. The program is free to participants.
“It is our goal to give parents
the knowledge they need to be their child’s educator, an informed parent when their child enters school, and a contributing member of their community,” Clauser said in a release about the program.
During an interview, she said she has worked for Indian Valley Opportunity Center for 25 years, beginning as a teacher when the organization was known as the Indian Valley Opportunity Committee. That organization later changed its name to Indian Valley Opportunity Center, which merged in 2009 with Indian
Valley Housing Corp. to form Keystone Opportunity Center.
Keystone Opportunity Center programs include ones helping provide housing and food for those in need.
Keystone’s educational programs, which serve about 500 people a year, include five different levels of ESL, Family Literacy, high school equivalency, citizenship preparation and tutoring programs, Clauser and Daily said. The ESL classes include one for senior citizens, as well as a just started employer-based ESL, they said.