By Loren Amelunke/The Wichita Eagle
Services are scarce for Wichita adults who have low literacy. While there are services for children who struggle to learn in school, adults who are unable to read either find ways around it or fall through the cracks.
Nearly 20% of adults in Sedgwick County test at a Level 1 literacy or below. Level 1 literacy is described as “a level associated with difficulty interpreting simple written information and completing everyday reading tasks.”
“(In Wichita) there are adult education programs out there for people who don’t have their high school diploma, but beyond that, there isn’t anyone who’s helping adults who don’t know how to read,” said Savannah Ball, the Literacy Services Manager at the Wichita Public Library.
The Wichita Journalism Collaborative has dedicated its new initiative to researching the adult literacy crisis and discovering where resources are needed in the community.
The Collaborative is a coalition of 11 newsrooms and community groups, including The Wichita Eagle and the Wichita Public Library.
The Library interviewed several community organizations during its strategic agenda process in 2024. It found that some of these organizations, such as food banks or recovery centers, were struggling to do their jobs because some adults in need of food or housing resources lacked basic reading skills to fill out intake forms.
“Yes, we understand if you can’t read, you can’t read a book,” Ball said. “But do we understand that if you can’t read, you can’t complete a voting ballot or know to take the right amount of medicine that your doctor prescribed you?”
Raising awareness about literacy struggles is the first step of the Collaborative’s new initiative, “Beyond Words: Wichita’s Reading Crisis.” As part of that, the Collaborative invites the public to a kickoff event this month to explore the literacy crisis.
The event is scheduled for Sept. 17 from 6 to 7:30 p.m at The Advanced Learning Library, 711 W. Second St. Staff from the Phillips Fundamental Learning Center and the Wichita Public Library will facilitate simulations that make participants experience how stressful school can be for someone with dyslexia, dysgraphia and other learning challenges.
“These simulations put you in the shoes of somebody who has a neurodiversity – it really makes you more empathetic,” said Jill Hodge, the Andeel Teacher Literacy Institute Facilitator at Phillips.
The learning center is a nonprofit that supports children with dyslexia and other learning challenges. Parents whose students are enrolled in the center’s Rolph Literacy Academy are required to experience one of the simulations.
“I hear people say often, ‘Oh my gosh, I was so hard on my child. I called them lazy, and now I realize that it was all because of dyslexia,’ or it was all because of ADHD, or all because of some type of neurodiversity, and that it wasn’t their fault,” said Hodge.
Some adults have realized after the simulations that they struggled in school in the same way, Hodge said, and never knew why.
One of the simulations at the kickoff event will imitate submitting a job application when the participant cannot read.
Members of the Wichita Journalism Collaborative and staff from Phillips Fundamental Learning Center also will provide data they have collected on literacy.
Registration is not required, but it is encouraged to ensure space for everyone. To register, click here.
To find more information about the event and to follow along with the Collaborative’s coverage of the topic, visit wichitajournalism.org.
Loren Amelunke is The Wichita Eagle’s intern. Loren is a senior at Wichita State University and was the summer 2024 intern for the Wichita Journalism Collaborative.
This article was republished here with the permission of: The Wichita Eagle
