VOLUNTEERS CHALLENGE ALL TO READ

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 25, 1993                   TAG: 9302250157
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: LURA ASTOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
VOLUNTEERS CHALLENGE ALL TO READ
This has been the month to help someone read. February has been Literacy Awareness Month, and this is Literacy Challenge Week - an attack on illiteracy.
"Any adult with the desire to learn to read, and who shows the ability to learn, can be helped by the Literacy Volunteers of America," says Ellen Dowell, the literacy program's coordinator.
Many people wrongly think that if an adult cannot read and write, he or she is not intelligent and has no valuable opinions. Dowell said this is a wrong assumption; the person is only illiterate. Many people "slipped through the cracks" in school, Dowell said, before public awareness of learning disabilities.
Literacy volunteers tutor adults who cannot read and write, who are below a fifth-grade level, who are mentally impaired, elderly or have learning disabilities, or who are unable to perform basic living functions because English is a new language.
Tutors are trained through the Literacy Volunteers and work one-on-one with clients.
During Literacy Challenge Week the volunteers ask everyone to read to someone who can't - children, adults, elders, the blind and the learning-disabled.
Call New River Valley Literacy Volunteers at 382-7262.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB