National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week highlights importance of adult literacy

DELAWARE – 55% of Delawareans ages 16-74 can not read at a 6 grade level, that’s according to Literacy Delaware.

To bring more awareness to adult literacy, the organization is promoting National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week.

Literacy Delaware defines adult literacy as people who read or speak English at a proficient level.

The non-profit provides training and tutoring services which now have a wait list and they tells us they’re in need of more volunteers.

We spoke the Sussex County Coordinator Dale Ashera-Davis who says literacy is the key to preventing things like poverty to bad health outcomes. We’re told it could also improve a student’s success in school. “For example, if a mom can’t read she’s not going to read to her children. She may not have books in the house and may not take advantage of library services,” Davis said.

“We have heard all kinds of stories of actual survival in a world that’s focused on reading. So our mission of course is to help them get those skills up to where they can not only survive but thrive.”

Literacy Delaware has several events planned for the week, including a Vocabulary Jar activity Tuesday 9/20 at the Delmar Library from 3p.m.-5p.m.

To find out more about Literacy Delaware, click here