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Facilitator’s Guide to
Orientation of New Volunteers
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Materials: |
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One LPM
Information Kit per person |
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One LPM Volunteer
Handbook per person |
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"Investing in
Literacy" LPM video |
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A Learner Speaker
from LPM Speaker's Bureau |
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Orientation
Evaluation form |
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Flip chart or
white board and appropriate pens |
Background notes for Volunteer Orientation (approx 3
hours)
1. Welcome and Introductions (10
min.)
Hosted by Volunteer Coordinator (or other staff, possibly a youth
volunteer) Most volunteers have been screened and interviewed by this
point, and are therefore quite familiar with LPM. However, some potential
volunteers* might be invited to attend orientation to learn more about the
organization, and find out about volunteer opportunities.
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Everyone receives an LPM Information Kit which
contains the following: |
| “Literacy
Matters” by Peter Calamai |
Volunteer
Handbook |
| LPM brochures,
handouts, bookmark |
NALD brochure |
| Write On!
Newsletter |
Orientation
Evaluation form |
| Pen and paper |
*Application for new
volunteers |
2. “Now and Then” Ice Breaker:
(15 min.)
Volunteers introduce themselves
(name/school/program/interests) and briefly recall their earliest reading
memories and what type of reading they enjoy now.
3. Group Discussion on Literacy (30
min.) (Record on flip chart or white board)
Question 1. What’s your
definition of literacy?
Ability to read and write, comprehension,
computers, literacy is power, literacy is information
Question 2. Why do
some people have difficulty with reading, writing and math?
Learning
disabilities, physical disabilities, mental disabilities, poverty, hunger,
moving often, unstable home life, little support for school from parents,
parents with low literacy skills so unable to help children, rural or northern
location - less access to schools or books, more important to help at home with
younger siblings or help on family farm, quit school because it was too hard,
boring, or to get a pay check instead, teen pregnancy, unable to fit in at
school, new to Canada - English not first language
Question 3. What % of Canadians: (answers must add up to
l00%).
Can read? _____% Can’t read? ______% Basic reading
skills_____%
Question 4. Are strong literacy skills essential today?
Why?
We are an information-based society, so without strong literacy
skills a person is unable to access all the information available, and must
rely on other sources of information (friends, family, television or
radio).
4. Getting the Facts:
Literacy is a relatively new
issue. Twenty-five years age, there were very few organizations in Canada
concerned with literacy, and in general, literacy as an issue, was unknown,
unresearched and unrecognized.
With one of the world’s most expensive education systems,
Canadians had long assumed that adults with low literacy skills was a problem
that existed elsewhere - in the Third World or in American inner-city
ghettos.
In 1987, Southam Newspapers spent $295,000 on a national test
which found that one in four Canadian adults had serious literacy problems. The
title of the report was “Broken Words - Why 5 Million Canadians Can't
Read."
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The Southam project was followed up by two larger, much
costlier surveys done by Statistics Canada (including the International Adult
Literacy Survey or IALS) which confirmed what the Southam survey had reported,
and which eventually concluded that as many as 48% of Canadian adults have
literacy or reading problems.
(This can be left out)
Some of the
conclusions from the most recent surveys* are: |
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40% of Canadians aged 16-65 have
low literacy skills |
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20% of recent high school
graduates have literacy skills too low for entry level jobs |
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80% of Canadians over 65 have
low literacy skills (due to atrophy through underuse or to the fact that high
school was discretionary for most) |
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59% of immigrants have low
literacy skills vs 45 percent of Canadians but 22% of immigrants have high
literacy skills vs 19% of Canadians |
The Southam and subsequent surveys led the government to
establish the National Literacy Secretariat, which helped established literacy
branches and programs in every province and territory, as well as provincial
coalitions like “LPM”. The NLS continues to provide us with core
funding, as well as funding for pilot projects, conferences, resources and so
on, and there are currently about 100 adult and family literacy programs
running in Manitoba.
continued….. |