Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
In Indiana, one out of five people can't read.
That statistic improves in Kosciusko County to one in seven people.
To Kosciusko Literary Services, however, that "improvement" isn't enough. During September, which is National Literacy Month, KLS hopes to raise awareness of illiteracy and of the services the organization offers that are available to people who can't read.
"There are more people out there who can't read than people are aware of," said Brenda Rigdon, executive director of KLS.
An adult who reads at or below the third-grade level is considered illiterate, she said, as is one who cannot read at all.
"You have to be able to not only read the words but understand what you're reading," Rigdon said.
One of the areas KLS is focusing on during National Literacy Month is reaching children to demonstrate the value and importance of reading. To do that, Rigdon said, KLS is piloting a program this year in which grandparents go into elementary schools and read their favorite children's stories to the students.
This year, on Sept. 14, about six grandparents will start the program at Redeemer Lutheran School.
"We're starting there because it's a relatively small school," Rigdon said. "They'll be reading to all the kids in the school."
Emphasizing the importance of reading to children, Rigdon said, is vital because "illiteracy is a cycle, like poverty, childhood abuse, alcoholism - it's a cycle that tends to run in families. Children grow up not reading and not valuing reading."
Parents need to turn off the television and the computer, she said, "and sit down and read, even if it's just reading the newspaper. Then kids will understand that grownups need to learn to read."
Of the grandparents' reading program, she said, plans are to expand it next year.
"Next year we hope to be in every elementary school. We're starting small to work out the kinks and the bugs, then we'll go corporation-wide and then, in a couple of years, we'll go countywide," she said.
Stressing the value of reading to children is one thing; developing programs for illiterate adults is more difficult, Rigdon said.
"It is extremely hard to reach adults who don't read and write," she said.
One way KLS hopes to do that is by recruiting companies in the county that would be interested in placing in the lounge or break room a video on KLS and on reading programs, Rigdon said. KLS will provide the video and the VCR, and the video runs in both English and Spanish, she said.
The company can let it run for a couple days or a week, she said.
"It's good for the company, good for employees - health and safety, job quality, job performance," she said. "It's a win-win situation for the employers and the employees. We have the tool."
KLS also is distributing bookmarks to all school libraries in all school corporations and private elementary schools for the libraries to hand out to students.
