Free program gives adults gift of literacy

The anniversary card, with cute kittens on the front, was blank inside.

So before Savannah Kissell sent the card to her husband in Iraq, she wrote on the inside, telling her husband how proud she was of him and how much she missed him.

A mundane task for some, perhaps, but a landmark for Kissell, who a year ago lacked all but the most basic literacy skills.

"I filled out the whole thing from top to bottom," she marvels. "I still can't believe I did it."

On Monday, the Pikes Peak Library District will celebrate International Literacy Day and honor people such as Kissell who have participated in the district's adult literacy programs. It is through the library's LitSource program that Kissell has learned some much-needed skills - and, she says, developed a self-confidence she had always lacked.

Kissell, 25, never attended school. Her father was an evangelist, and her family was always on the move when she was young. The family finally settled down in Houston when she was 11, but even then didn't enroll her in school. Nor was home-schooling a priority.

"I love my dad and mom," she says, "but it's kind of like, shame on them for not letting me get my education."

Only those closest to her knew her secret. One friend assumed she was Hispanic and grew up speaking Spanish because of her "broken English."

She relied, she says, not on book smarts, but street smarts. She picked up basic reading and writing mostly from friends and worked jobs "like normal people." She worked as a receptionist at a land-developing company in Houston and also worked in retail.

"I seriously don't know how I got as far as I did, but I did," she says. "I really believe that God has always been with me and protected me."

She married her husband, Ben, in March 2007 and moved to the Springs to be with him. They had been friends for years and formed a long-distance relationship when Ben, a welder in the Army, was on an earlier tour in Iraq.

"He kind of knew," she says, about her difficulties reading and writing, but didn't know the extent until they were wed.

"He would send me e-mails and stuff, and I would never reply. I would send him birthday cards, but they would be written by a friend for me, or a family member."

When they learned last fall that Ben would be returning to Iraq, Kissell worried she'd have to move back to Houston.

"I've never had to live on my own and take responsibility for paying bills and things like that," she says.

Then her husband stumbled across the LitSource program, which provides free tutoring. It sounded like just what she needed, but there were no tutors available. She was planning her move home to Houston when the call finally came: There was an instructor for her.

About 130 LitSource volunteers contribute more than 10,000 hours of service a year. "I'm always looking for volunteers," says Sherrill Wyeth, who oversees the program.

The district's literacy program provides individual tutoring for those with difficulties reading and writing, as well as English conversation groups and classes for people learning English. "Over the years," Wyeth says, "we have branched out and tried to meet the needs of a wider range of patrons, and at this point it has become 85 percent English as a second language."

Kissell has been in the program for nearly a year, with a two-hour tutoring session each week. One goal, she wrote in answer to a question in early testing, was to become "a bedder reeder."

The first couple of months, she says, were often frustrating. "It was like, I don't get this." Even now, there are times she feels overwhelmed; other times, she marvels at how far she has come.

"I can text," she says. "Everybody back home, they never texted me because I never texted back. Now I can actually hold a few conversations." Not in a special, abbreviated text language, she adds, but "real words."

And she can write to her husband. Letters and cards about her day, her triumphs, how she misses him. Before, she says, "I couldn't write a letter for the life of me."

Her overall confidence has been raised; she feels, she says, like a better person. She's hoping to go for her GED by the end of the year.

"I love the person that I am, and I love the place that I'm at in my life. I feel truly blessed."

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CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0272 or bill.radford@gazette.com.

DETAILS

The Pikes Peak Library District will hold a public reception at 7 p.m. Monday at the Penrose Library, 20 N. Cascade Ave., to mark International Literacy Day. The reception will provide information on local literacy programs and celebrate publication of the 2008 Stone Soup journal, written by participants in the library district's LitSource program. To learn more about the program, go to www.ppld.org and click on "Library Services," or call 531-6333, ext. 2223 or 2224.

Literacy in America

• According to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 20 million adults in the U.S. function at the "below basic" level of literacy skill.

• Half of all adults in U.S. federal and state correctional institutions cannot read or write; 85 percent of juvenile offenders have reading problems.

• American business currently spends more than $60 billion each year on employee training, much of that for remedial reading, writing and mathematics.

• Research indicates that adults with low literacy skills do poorly in the job market, lack the ability to help their children be successful in school, and are more likely to suffer from poor health and receive public assistance.

Source: www.Proliteracy.org