READING

The Value of Volunteering, Robin Ferguson

I began working as a literacy volunteer as part of a community service course I was taking last semester. The course required a community service project, and I chose literacy volunteers simply as a means of fulfilling a course requirement. Now I realize that working as a literacy volunteer taught me more about learning and friendship than I ever expected.

1

When I first went through the training program to become a literacy volunteer, I learned about the process of learning -- that is, the way in which people learn new words most effectively. To illustrate this concept, the person who trained me wrote a brief list of simple words on the left side of a chalkboard and wrote phrases using the same words on the right side of the chalkboard. She instructed us to read the words and then asked which words we would be most likely to remember. We all said the words on the right because they made more sense. In other words, we could remember the words in the phrases more easily because they made more sense in context. The trainer showed us several more examples of words in context so we could get a grasp of how people learn new information by connecting it to what they already know.

2

The training I received, though excellent, was no substitute for working with a real student, however. When I began to discover what other people’s lives are like because they cannot read, I realized the true importance of reading. For example, when I had my first tutoring session with my client, Marie, a forty-four-year-old single mother of three, I found out she walked two miles to the nearest grocery store twice a week because she didn’t know which bus to take. When I told her I would get her a bus schedule, she confided to me that it would not help because she could not read it and therefore wouldn’t know which bus to take. She also said she had difficulty once she got to the grocery store because she couldn’t always remember what she needed. Since she did not know words, she could not write out a grocery list. Also, she identified items by sight, so if the manufacturer changed a label, she could not recognize it as the product she wanted.

3

As we worked together, learning how to read built Marie’s self-confidence, which gave her an incentive to continue in her studies. She began to make rapid progress and was even able to take the bus to the grocery store. After this successful trip, she reported how self-assured she felt. Eventually, she began helping her youngest son, Mark, a shy first grader, with his reading. She sat with him before he went to sleep, and together they would read bedtime stories. When his eyes became wide with excitement as she read, her pride swelled, and she began to see how her own hard work in learning to read paid off. As she described this experience, I swelled with pride as well. I found that helping Marie to build her self-confidence was more rewarding than anything I had ever done before.

4

As time went by, Marie and I developed a friendship that became permanent. Because we saw each other several times a week, we spent a lot of time getting to know each other, and we discovered we had certain things in common. For instance, I’m also a single parent. So we began to share our similar experiences with each other. In fact, we have even baby-sat for each other’s children. I would drop my children off at her house while I taught an evening adult class, and in return, I watched her children while she worked on Saturday mornings.

5

As a literacy volunteer, I learned a great deal about learning, teaching, and helping others. I also established what I hope will be a lifelong friendship. In fact, I may have benefited more from the experience than Marie did.

6