Newswise — Roberta Lanterman, director of the Long Beach Family Literacy Program, will testify today (May 5) before the House Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning and Competitiveness.
Lanterman will focus her testimony on encouraging Congress to continue to support family literacy programs as an important delivery model in the provision of adult education services.
"There is a direct correlation with the education of the parent, the poverty status of the home and the likelihood of the child's success in school," said Lanterman, who also is a certified trainer with the National Center for Family Literacy. "We must focus on the interconnectedness of the problem, which will lead us to a real, long-lasting solution " educating the entire family."
The subcommittee will hear testimony from several speakers, including Grammy-winning country singer Gretchen Wilson.
The Long Beach Family Literacy Program, which has been in operation since 1992, serves as a model for other literacy efforts and has been lauded as a national example by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The program recently received a grant from Toyota to bring the program to Hispanic families and expand it onto three local elementary school campuses.
The Toyota Family Literacy Program provides adults and their children with the skills and resources necessary to be successful in their education, financially secure and productive members of their communities.
Seventy-three percent of program participants are at or below the federal poverty level, and 61 percent have not gone beyond the ninth grade. Despite those obstacles, the Long Beach Family Literacy Program exceeds state benchmarks year after year in adult education proficiency, preschool vocabulary and preschool alphabet knowledge.
Its most recent results show that parents made gains that were more than double the state reading proficiency benchmarks. Participating children who entered kindergarten increased their English-language skills at rate of 2.5 times more than the federal benchmark.
Lanterman attributed the success of the program to its multigenerational approach. "By addressing the needs of parents and children simultaneous, we are outperforming stand-alone programs," Lanterman said.
The program also works with the city and the Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Network to integrate family literacy and welfare-to-work programming. As a result, more adults are obtaining their GEDs and vocational credits " making them more employable.
Most recently, the program was awarded a grant from Toyota to expand its services to Hispanic families. Of nearly 200 national applicants, Long Beach was among the top five in nation. The Toyota program, created by the National Center for Family Literacy, is unique because it not only brings parents and children together in a classroom but also includes programming that is culturally relevant to the populations served.
"Addressing the needs of the entire family is a powerful community strategy for raising educational levels, improving workforce skills and breaking the cycle of poverty," said NCFL President & Founder Sharon Darling, whose organization arranged for Lanterman to testify. "When parents are employed, their children fare better."
The National Center for Family Literacy, founded in 1989, is the worldwide leader in family literacy. More than 1 million families have made positive educational and economic gains as a result of NCFL's work, which includes training more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of volunteers. For more information, visit www.famlit.org.
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