Page 2 SV Sunday Extra Sauk Valley Media • October 16, 2011

Sunday feature | project vital

BY KIRaN SOOD ksood@saukvalley.com 800-798-4085, ext. 529

DIXON – The coordi-nator of Project VITAL hopes to help educate adult students in a new way as the program becomes part of Sauk Valley Community Col-lege’s Adult Education department.

Project VITAL, which stands for Volunteers in Teaching Adults Literacy, pairs volunteer tutors with adults who want to improve their reading and writing skills. Kathleen Hughes, who has been the Adult Education coordina-tor for the past 10 months, now serves as coordinator of both programs.

Zully Vock recently resigned as Project VITAL coordinator, but still is a volunteer tutor.

Project VITAL will con-tinue to pair volunteer tutors with students for one-on-one sessions. In addition, Adult Education instructors are working closely with VITAL tutors to provide assistance for students at all levels.

Hughes said the idea is to “utilize the volunteers in the adult education classes.”

Students entering Proj-ect VITAL can choose to receive one-on-one attention or be a part of a group learning structure.

A student entering an Adult Education class at a lower level likely will work with a VITAL tutor to improve their skills, she said.

“We are really just trying to service more students,” Hughes said. “A good example was a

student we had over the summer. He was attend-ing Adult Education classes, but he was also getting tutored.”

The student came in with a 2.6 grade level and in just 48 hours – from classroom instruction and working with tutors – he improved to a 5.8 grade level, she said.

Hughes said other col-leges that have literacy programs and adult edu-cation programs are “becoming one adult education department.”

It takes 100 hours of instruction for a student to go up one reading grade level.

“So we thought, we’ve got to give these stu-dents more instructional hours,” she said. “By doing this, they are going to get the instructional hours in the classroom, but they’re also going to get those one-on-one or small group tutoring.”

Nestor Chirinos is a vol-unteer tutor for Project VITAL. On Thursday morn-ing at St. Mary’s Parish in Sterling, he was teaching a small group of native Span-ish speakers how to struc-ture sentences.

Making a VITAL link between effortsLiteracy program now a part of Sauk Valley Community College’s Adult Education

Photos by alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.comProject VITaL instructor Nestor Chirinos teaches a small group of native Spanish speakers how to structure sentences in english on Thursday morning at St. Mary’s Parish in Sterling. Project VITaL pairs volunteer tutors like Chirinos with adults who want to improve their reading and writing skills. Project VITaL recently became part of Sauk Valley Community College’s adult education department.

Maria arellano smiles after reading in english, a skill she is honing by taking classes twice a week at St. Mary’s Parish in Sterling. She hopes a better com-mand of the english language will help her find a job.

Rosendo Solis of Sterling talks about his experiences in the Project VITaL english language class. Solis, 61, wants to earn his geD.

To take partTo volunteer to be a

part of Project VITAL, call 815-835-6241 or email vital@svcc.edu.

There are periodic training workshops for new tutors.

For more informa-tion or to join an Adult Education course, visit www.svcc.edu or call 815-835-6312.

VITaL continued on 34

Page 3SV Sunday ExtraOctober 16, 2011 • Sauk Valley Media

Sunday feature | project vital

He said teaching adult learners is different from teaching younger ones.

“You certainly can teach an old dog new tricks by understanding the cogni-tive and social character-istics of adult learners,” he said.

One of the students in the session on Thursday was Maria Arellano, 39, a native Spanish speaker who wants to better understand English.

She attends classes twice a week at St. Mary’s and hopes learning Eng-lish will allow her to get a job.

Rosendo Solis, 61, is in the class for a different reason. He wants to earn

his GED. Solis, originally of Gua-

dalajara, Mexico, said he never had the opportu-nity to earn his degree.

“As soon as I came over here, I started work,” he said. “So I’ve been work-ing straight 32 and a half years.”

There are only two requirements to enroll in an Adult Education course or to receive tutoring – be at least 17 years old and live in the Sauk Valley.

Last year, Adult Educa-tion served more than 300 students; VITAL pro-vided services to 180.

“We want to see that increase, and more importantly, we would like to see the instruc-tional hours increase,” Hughes said. “That is

what’s so critical.”Hughes has a history

of providing community service in the Sauk Valley.

Before becoming coordinator of both programs, she served as director of Home of Hope for 5 years. She has been married to Tom for 24 years in November. They have three daugh-ters: Ellen, 20, a student at Carthage College; Bridget, 18, a student at University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and Shannon, 17, a senior at Newman Central Catholic High School.

Hughes has a degree in elementary education from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. She hopes to sometime earn her master’s in adult education.

Project VITAL served 180 last year

Kiran Sood/ksood@saukvalley.comKathleen Hughes now serves as coordinator of both Project VITaL and Sauk Val-ley Community College’s adult education program. She previously served for 5 years as director of Home of Hope Cancer Wellness Center in Dixon.

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