New Haven Independent

The Greater New Haven Literacy Coalition sponsored a forum Wednesday evening, October 25, featuring former Connecticut Education Commissioner Theodore Sergi. Sergi, now President and CEO of the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, addressed the topic “Advancing Literacy: What Will It
Take, and What Can You Do?”

Known during his tenure as commissioner for stressing higher academic expectations, he sounded that theme at this session held in Bank of America’s 27th floor conference room overlooking New Haven.

Sergi reminded the audience that on average the education level of a mother is a significant predictor of her child’s reading skill and general academic progress. Therefore, he suggested, adults between the ages of 18 and 30 — including young women who might not have completed high school before having children — ought to
be a target of coalitions such as that in greater New Haven looking to enhance reading levels in the region generally. He argued that providers of adult education must aim at a minimum to help their clients develop solid reading, speaking, and writing skills — all essential in the workplace. While recognizing the importance
of schools’ and families’ joint efforts to help students achieve at the pre-K to grade 12 level, he emphasized communities’ responsibility to help offer learners “a second chance,” too.

In that endeavor, he maintained, the so far all-volunteer Greater New Haven Literacy Coalition can play a crucial role in “reaching out” and helping various constituencies to “work together”: adult education providers, school systems, libraries, community colleges, faith-based groups, and individuals who care, including philanthropists.

Also speaking briefly at the event were Coalition President Tomas Miranda (pictured), formerly the New Haven Public Schools’ supervisor of bilingual education and now at Casa Otonal; Vice President Ellen Thompson, the director of adult education in Hamden; and Treasurer Doss Venema, executive director of Literacy Volunteers of Greater New
Haven. Other participants represented organizations ranging from Read to Grow, which promotes early literacy, to Concepts for Adaptive Learning, which equips and trains New Haven parents to use computers in the cause of their and their children’s learning.

The Coalition is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to serve as a clearinghouse to promote, support and advance literacy for people of all ages in our region. Its next scheduled event is a breakfast session that the New Haven Public Library will host at its new Courtland Seymour Wilson Branch in the Hill on November 15. For more information, contact Tomas Miranda.