While our office is closed, Read Muskegon's staff have been working hard to develop creative ways to keep our community engaged while we adhere to the COVID-19 guidelines.
When the Shelter in Place order is lifted, the job market is going to be highly competitive, meaning it is more important than ever that we continue to help low literacy adults in our county build their skills. Many of the children that participate in our programs are at the greatest risk of falling further behind in school because they are living in homes with low literacy adults or without access to as many learning resources. Providing both of these populations with easy access to our programs is our highest priority.
We want to share our plans with you so that you can help us spread the word about the opportunities we will have available.
|
|
Adult Literacy Programs:
- Intakes: New learner intakes will be transitioned to phone, FaceTime and Zoom.
- Technology: We are working with each of our current learners to asses their ability to access the internet and provide support in connecting to available free internet programs.
- ESL (English as a Second Language): classes have transitioned to Zoom and new learners are welcome to join.
- Job Skills: 6 workplace based literacy lessons are being filmed and will be uploaded to the Read Muskegon YouTube channel and available to the public. Google Classroom and mail will be utilized to provide access to handouts.
- 1-1 Tutoring: We are working with our tutors to connect as many as possible to their learners to continue tutoring via FaceTime, phone and Zoom.
- Project Fatherhood Book Club: Weekly meetings will continue via Zoom.
- Lessons by Mail: When a learner does not have the ability to access technology, we are providing lessons via mail.
|
|
Family Literacy Programs:
- School Zone Workbooks: Before the Shelter in Place order, we safely delivered close to 1000 PK -1st grade workbooks through school meal programs and direct to families enrolled in Head Start and Great Start Readiness programs.
- ABCs of Cooking: We will be filming weekly sessions of our popular parent/child cooking class and making it available through our Facebook and YouTube accounts. The curriculum is being rewritten to ensure all foods are WIC approved so that all families will be able to recreate the recipes.
- Grow A Little Reader: The first week of April, we will begin offering several sessions of this early literacy class via Facebook. The focus is on 0-2 year olds.
- Family Resources on Facebook: We've created a weekly schedule of short Facebook Live events to help engage families in early literacy activities.
|
|
Volunteers:
- New Volunteer Orientation: We will continue to recruit new volunteers and provide an initial orientation by video, phone or Zoom. The orientation video is already available.
- Current Volunteers: We are reaching out to each of them to check-in and assess their needs and ability to connect online. We will provide any needed support in using technology to connect with their learner.
- Volunteer Training: Our next training is scheduled for April 1st & 2nd and this will be provided remotely.
- Tutor Roundtables: We are working to transition these resource sharing meetings to Zoom or another online platform.
|
|
For more information on these programs please contact Sarah Klassen:
sarah.klassen@readmuskegon.org or 231-766-5040
|
|
|
|
|
