With classes starting again, there are plenty of excited students and teachers. I came across this article and even though it is directed towards teachers, the message applies to anyone who teaches, tutors, trains or facilitates learning. I hope it inspires future and current Turning Pages tutors. Enjoy.
What Students Remember Most About Teachers by pursuitofajoyfullife
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Wishing you a happy and healthy start to 2014 full of family, friends, and good books.
We at Turning Pages are looking forward to continuing our work in the new year. We envision a Midlands in which all adults will have the literacy skills to participate productively at home, at work and in our community. We see it as our mission to help adults in the Midlands read and write better to improve their incomes and lives.
We invite you to join us in whatever way you can, whether it be attending a tutor training and working one-on-one with a learner, donating some old books as you do your January cleaning, or starting off the year with a financial contribution. (It’s easy – we have Paypal!) As always, thank you for what you do to support literacy in the Midlands!
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The end of the year and beginning of a new one is a good time to think about Claire Booth Luce’s challenge to write your life sentence. “See if you can summarize your life in one sentence,” she urged her friends.
Mrs. Luce was an accomplished actress, writer and diplomat. Her challenge is one worth addressing. If you summarize the importance of your life in a single sentence, what would you write? How often would you rewrite it? A single sentence forces us to focus on what’s important to us.
What is your life’s purpose?
What have you done with it?
That’s your life sentence.
Here at Turning Pages, with help from fellow Rotarians, volunteer tutors and board members, our purpose is to help adults learn to read or read better, write and acquire other life skills. This serves three vital purposes:
If you would like to help us help more people, please click on “Donate” to the left on this page where you can make a tax-deductible donation before the end of the year. Thank you.
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Kindles: Love ’em or leave ’em?
I think we can all agree that we are book lovers here at Turning Pages. So, the question is, how do you get your fix? Do you prefer the texture of the pages under your fingerprints, the weight of the book in your hands, the smell of the paper in your nostrils as you open that library door? I love it. Do you fill your paper books with post-it notes, underlines, highlights? Do you love finding a grocery receipt or a train ticket stub or a business card in between the pages of a book? As your eyes scan across this artifact from your life, do you pause from reading to remember what you were doing — buying olives and pickles for the appetizer tray at Thanksgiving dinner, taking the train to the city for your cousin’s wedding, the wedding where the DJ said the wrong name as he introduced the bride and groom? You chuckle because it’s only funny after the fact. Those pages remember.
Or, would you rather slide that thin, light electronic device into your handbag, barely feeling its weight even though it contains, like, ten million words? Do you download library eBooks as though they were emails? You have to admit, it is pretty fantastic that library eBooks will literally return themselves when due. (NO MORE OVERDUE FINES!) Are you, like me, fascinated that an electronic device can take on the visual appearance of the printed page with no backlighting? Do you sometimes press the “page turn” button unnecessarily, just for the pleasure of watching those electronic-ink pixels scurry to rearrange themselves, like a marching band, what form will they take on next? I do.
What are you currently reading? Do you have an eReader? Is it on your holiday wish list?
Friends, I’m happy to announce that we are receiving some support from Trinity Episcopal. They have chosen us as a beneficiary of their Holiday Bazaar. Please come support the Bazaar on Saturday November 9th from 10 to 2 PM at 1100 Sumter Street. There will be family activities and games, delicious food, AND you can get a jump on your shopping lists while supporting several local charities and nonprofits. Hope to see you there
Editor’s note: Today is the first in a series of Q&As to help you get to know our board! We are starting off with Allison Matthews, who has been with us for a little over a year now.
What brought you to Turning Pages?
I come from a family of educators, and in high school, I became especially interested in helping people learn to read. I left Columbia for college, then started a career as an elementary-school teacher. When I moved back to Columbia, I wanted to find a place to volunteer during my summers off. I decided to look for a place that works with adult learners, and, voila! I found Turning Pages.
How long have you been working with your learner?
Ms. G. and I have been working together since June 2012.
What is one of your best “success” moments in working with Ms. G?
When we first started working together, Ms. G would often read through a paragraph quickly, making several errors that affected the meaning of the text, and just move on without understanding what she had read. I brought this to her attention and taught her the strategy of stopping after each paragraph to tell what she learned in her own words. Now, I’ve started noticing that she stops herself to summarize even without me reminding her.
Tell us about a challenge and how you negotiated it.
An ongoing challenge with tutoring is finding the best instructional methods and texts for Ms. G. She has some very distinct strengths as a reader, along with some significant challenges. I’m constantly having to adjust my approach to find what’s most effective.
As a board member, the main challenge is feeling overwhelmed by all the work we’d like to do to improve the services we offer our learners. I think we as a team have gotten a lot better about prioritizing what needs to be done, then dividing the labor so we can knock it all out. It’s an exciting time.
What is your favorite thing about Turning Pages?
It’s definitely the people! Ms. G. and I have built a great friendship. I enjoy working with and learning from my fellow board members, all of whom are passionate about adult literacy. And every volunteer I have gotten to meet is so dedicated and kind. It’s just so encouraging to be a part of this organization.
What do you do when you’re not volunteering with Turning Pages?
Try to make myself useful! I believe it’s very important to be active as a Christian and church member, so that’s a big part of my life. I teach fourth grade Language Arts and Social Studies, so that’s another sizeable chunk, for sure. Other than that– I dabble in music, writing, and the (very) occasional jog!
Are you reading anything good lately?
The book of Isaiah and Time Magazine.
What is your favorite book now? From childhood?
Oh, man. There are so many good ones out there. But my all-time favorite is still Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. I mean, it’s got adventure, solid character development, humor, important life lessons, and an astounding number of puns. What more could you really ask for in a book?
If you could have lunch with one author, living or dead, who would it be?
If I wanted to enjoy my lunch and learn something, it would be C.S. Lewis. He offers so much wisdom through his writing– and humor, too.
If I wanted to tell someone off while eating lunch, it would be Ernest Hemingway. I would encourage him to be a less terrible human being and to occasionally try writing longer sentences.
If you had to choose between visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, which would it be?
One of the most important questions in life. Both would be cool, but I would go to Hogwarts. If I went to the factory, I would probably fall into the chocolate lake and get stuck in the pipe just like Augustus Gloop.
Editor’s note: Today’s post comes from tutor and board member, Allison Matthews. Thanks for sharing your perspective, Allison!
When I was working with my learner today, we did a quick exercise to call attention to the letter S at the ends of words. Ms. G. tends to drop off endings like –s, -ed, and –ing when she speaks, and so naturally, she does the same thing when she reads. It’s not always a huge deal, but I’ve told her that sometimes, an ending can make a big difference in the way you understand a word. She performed the exercise beautifully and stretched out all the S’s she found.
“Yeah, I know I never say my endings,” she told me afterward. “When I was a kid, I used to talk and read real fast so no one could understand what I was saying.”
“You didn’t want people to notice you making mistakes?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s it!”
“So, did anyone ever stop you and slow you down, or did you just slide by?”
“They just let me slide right by!”
This exchange with Ms. G. amazed me. First, I was impressed that even as a child, she was developing effective strategies for hiding her reading troubles from her teachers. She may have been labeled with a variety of disorders over the years, but Ms. G. is one smart cookie!
But I was saddened, too, that—as far as I know—no one took the time to slow this little girl down and really listen. To tell her that it was okay to make mistakes. To help her with the words she wasn’t sure about. To teach her that her thoughts are important enough to be heard.
These days, Ms. G. is learning to take her time and communicate her ideas with others through her work at Turning Pages. Let’s look around for other children, teens, and adults who are sliding by and take the time to really listen.
Photo credit: Paul Sableman
The Turning Pages board has been working on a strategic plan to help us focus more effectively on our vision, mission and values. We had a great session last month with Charles Weathers, and some follow-up board sessions to work on the “homework” he has given us.
Our Vision is that, as a result of our work tutoring adults who need to learn to read and write, that they will have the literacy skills to participate productively at home, at work and in our community.
Our Mission: We help adults in the Midlands read and write better to improve their incomes and lives.
That’s a tall order we realize, and with it we embrace a set of values. These values represent our core principles and beliefs. They are not negotiable and will not be compromised during the achievement of our mission. We believe in:
We hope this gives you a fuller understanding of what we’re about. We will discuss more about our strategic plan in future blogs.
Photo credit: David McKelvey
Lexington – A five-course gourmet wine dinner June 6 will raise money for Turning Pages literacy tutoring.
The tutoring program in Lexington and Richland counties has tutored hundreds of adults with varying literacy skills, to help them learn to read and write, qualify for better jobs and take care of their families.
The dinner will be at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 6, at the Main Street Cafe. 131 East Main St., Lexington, S.C.
The dinner will be hosted by Main Street Cafe owner and chef George Trifos, Sandi Patel of Palmetto Wine and Spirits with wine selection and commentary by Southern Wines and Spirits.
The dinner is sponsored by the West Metro Rotary Club, Lexington Young Professionals, AGGAdvisors,Main Street Cafe, Mirror Associates, Pine Press Printing, Palmetto Wine & Spirits and Lexington County Chronicle.
Turning Pages 