In January 2010, the Monica Boyd Literacy Foundation was excited to sponsor its first student. Anthony, a student with Crosby ISD, receives tutoring and assessment through Baytown’s Sylvan Learning Center to help him enrich his reading skills. In less than 5 months, Anthony has improved one grade level.
The Monica Boyd Literacy Foundation, with the assistance of area school districts, helps to identify children in elementary and/or middle school who are reading significantly below grade level and are at risk of failure. In partnership with Baytown Sylvan Learning Center, our foundation raises funds to help scholarship local families in effort to offset the expenses of tutoring and assessment that is needed to help their child improve in reading. Although we are pursuing grant opportunities, our foundation relies on the generosity of individuals, local businesses and industry to help our organization meet its mission.
Your donation will make a difference in giving children a brighter future through success in reading.
Thank You,
Monica Boyd, Founder
Contact us at info@monicaboydfoundation.org
The Monica Boyd Literacy Foundation is a non-profit organization. (501c3)
By Penni Wild
Executive Director of New Jersey Reads
“The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.” — Don Miguel Ruiz
Today, our nation faces an epidemic that is destructive to our future. The disease is functional illiteracy. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), it has overtaken one-third of America’s children by the fourth grade — including two-thirds of African-American students and almost half of all children in the inner cities.
The basic definition of literacy is the ability to read and write. So the basic definition of illiteracy is the inability to read and write. Beyond the basic definitions, there is significance in the shocking statistics about the functionally illiterate. What illiteracy means is that millions may not be able to understand the directions on a medicine bottle, or be able to read their telephone bill, make correct change at a store, find and keep a job, or read to a child.
Illiteracy has long been viewed as a social and educational issue – someone else’s problem. However, more recently we have come to understand the economic consequences of the lack of literacy skills for America and American business.
In addition, as reported in the 1986 publication entitled Making Literacy Programs Work: A Practical Guide for Correctional Educators (for the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections), one-half of all adults in federal and state correctional institutions cannot read or write at all. Only about one-third of those in prison have completed high school.
The reasons for illiteracy are as varied as the number of non-readers. The adult non-reader may have left school early, may have had a physical or emotional disability, may have had ineffectual teachers or simply may have been unready to learn at the time reading instruction began.
Because they are unable to help their children learn, parents who can’t read often perpetuate the inter-generational cycle of illiteracy. Without books, newspapers or magazines in the home and a parent who reads to serve as a role model, many children grow up with severe literacy deficiencies. Clearly, there is no single cause of illiteracy.
Let us all do what we can to make illiteracy not a part of the story of America today but a part of America’s past.