>> JENNIFER PETERSON: 
I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started.

I'm so excited to welcome Katharine Ware, who is a writing and education consultant to present today's session.

We're so happy that you're here, Katharine, thank you so much for being here.

>> KATHARINE WARE: Hi, I'm absolutely thrilled to be here.

And ready to get going with you guys.

Let's see.

Jennifer, am I the -- there was my notification that I'm now the presenter.

All right.

Welcome, everybody.

We're going to start I figured with just a quick who am I cans why am I here.

I have a background in English and behavioral psychology.

But also most relevantly teaching experience, both adults and children with special needs as well as adult education, including adult education in the area of those that struggle with literacy.

Our outline for today is we're going to look at learning disability versus low literacy, quickly look at the impact of literacy at macro levels.

We're then going to dive further into why and how low literacy adults read, as well as addressing those low literacy levels in them.

We'll do a quick chat about selecting and suggesting texts, and I do have a reader's advisory, an activity for us before Q and A time.

The biggest thing to keep in mind I suppose is that so much of this requires you to fight against deeply ingrained thought processes that you may not realize you have.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that.

Jennifer told you that we will be asking some little questions from time to time, please throw your answers into chat, it's beneficial to everybody.

And with that said, I will move forward into some content and get rid of my face here.

So let's start with talking about learning disability versus low literacy.

So they are different.

A learning disability is a neurological issue that interferes with somebody's executive functioning, there's some sort of functional or structural cause within the brain that affects it.

Low literacy on the other hand is a skill-based issue.

Someone lacks proficiency in ability.

So literacy levels can be  affected by economic advantage, or disadvantage, as well as cultural differences.

But a learning disability is independent of those factors.

So areas of difficulty for those with a learning disability.

They might include a lot of things that you would expect or be familiar with.

Difficulty with reading,  writing, math, difficulty following directions, some lesser-known ones to keep an eye out for would be eye-hand coordination problems.

As well as difficulty with sequencing.

And difficulty adjusting to change.

Strengths on the other hand, for those with learning  disabilities, they often outshine their nonlearning disabled peers in areas like problem solving skills, persistence, empathy, personality, creative thinking.

So these are some ways that you can work to engage them and build their confidence, sort of focusing on some of these strengths.

So looking at low literacy,  then, in comparison, when we talk about low literacy, we are talking about people who in general can only understand a short simple statement about their own life.

In writing.

They need things to be expressed very clearly, and simply.

Areas of difficulty might include difficulties reading math, written directions, inability to discriminate amongst letters, numbers, and sounds.

So there are a lot of similarities between the expression of low literacy and the expression of a learning disability that can sometimes make it difficult to differentiate.

An important idea about this to keep in mind for -- as you're talking to adults with low literacy, so imagine the gap that they're facing between their ability to understand a short simple statement about their everyday life, versus trying to choose a mobile phone online, or comprehend the probate process.

So the struggle is sort of on an immensely different level.

Some similarities that are shared by both, they both come with a high frustration level.

Both tend to be accompanied by a low-self-esteem.

So this is where confidence building will be one of the more important factors.

And both can actually be a cause of violent behavior.

Having a low literacy can actually increase the chance that someone serves a prison sentence.

So this is going to be one of those question times, just throw out your first thought.

How do they decide when and where to build prisons?

Do you know how they know, or how do you think?

Just throw your first answers into chat.

Where the money is.

Reading levels.

High crime areas.

Land.

Outside big cities.

Awesome.

I love the participation.

Fabulous, you guys are great.

A couple people hit the nail on the head.

Third grade reading scores.

They look at the number of children who lack literacy at the end much third grade.

And if there is a large enough quantity, that is where they decide.

Two-thirds of children who cannot read proficiently by the end of fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare, and 75% much state prison inmates are functionally illiterate.

Here -- that's an excellent question I see about the third grade literacy levels tied to poverty rates.

There's a little bit of that in here later.

But that would be one to  explore.

Another quick question for you.

Sort of a two-fer.

What percent of Americans do you think are classified as completely illiterate?

Not just struggling readers or having low literacy, but illiterate.

And how many of those do you think graduated high school?

We're all guessing in the same ballpark.

All right.

Let's take a look.

So 23% of Americans are illiterate.

Of those, 20% of them graduated high school.

Children of low literacy parents begin school significantly behind their peers, and there's a direct correlation between their test scores and the grade level attained by their parents.

What does that indicate about that 20% of the 23?

Those that did graduate high school, what do you think that indicates about them?

Really nice answers here and a wide variety of them.

Yeah, a lot of -- you had the same thoughts that I did or same thoughts that have been proven, a strong come pens story strategies.

What's important about that is that those strong strategies can be used to your advantage when you're talking with them or  gaining their interest.

Other factors include age, gender, urbanicity, race, ethnicity, and as we notice, parental education as well.

So here's just some quick workforce stats.

I'm not going to dive into them too much, but they're here so you have them.

Essentially a 1% increase in the literacy rate would equal a 1.5% increase in the GDP.

There's an 8.6% increase in employee productivity for each additional year of education.

So that's just looking at the country as a whole, and where it is versus how -- where it could go.

So again, just more workforce and economy stats.

As you take a gander at those, I would like to again ask you, when you any minimum  proficiency, when we talk about adults who are illiterate who have minimum proficiency, what grade level do you associate it with, and what percent of Americans would you guess are below minimum proficiency?

Brains are thinking.

Answers are coming in here.

Awesome.

Okay.

So according to the U.S. Department of  Education, at least, 54% of U.S. adults, they say 16-74 years is adult -- lack proficiency in reading, which is below a sixth grade level.

That is over half of U.S. adults lack minimum proficiency in  reading.

Which we are defining as below a sixth grade level.

Looking at why and how these adults with low literacy read, what are they already looking  at?

What are things that you can pull from, what are ways that they're going about it that you can maybe get a handle in there?

So unfortunately the people the most likely to benefit from assistance in this case are the least likely to participate.

However, it's not that they are not reading in their daily lives at all.

In fact, they -- they have an average daily reading time of about 113 minutes, generally, in some sort of work-related activity.

And that exceeds that of many high school students when literacy activities were compared.

The workers average daily  reading time exceeded technical school students.

However, the reading they are encountering here is strongly repetitive and contextualized, it's related to knowledge that they already have.

So those are things that are comfort and ease factors for them.

So my next question for you is what are some reasons that someone who struggles with literacy might voluntarily seek out text?

So they're encountering it in work, on their own, but where would they seek it out and why?

I have in fact encountered sort of that level of struggle, where it's just scanning for a line to put the mark on.

These are great answers.

Loving the thought process.

So we set employment goals,  gaining or upgrading their employment, hopes related to their children.

One of the most frequently cited motivators is self-improvement.

Becoming a better person, they want to gain independence, learn how to do new things, I know a lot of you said certifications or learning how to cook, things like that.

And somewhat for diversion.

The two extremes of the adult able group, older and younger people, are more likely to engage in reading for diversion, or attempt it.

Middle aged, less so.

That's less of an interest for that age group.

It's often assumed that struggling adults lead sort of impoverished lives socially and culturally, as well as in terms of literacy.

However, in contrast, research suggests that lacking reading skills does not necessarily mean lacking other skills.

And they often have very strong alternative skill bases, both social lives, I noticed a lot of you said social media.

Wealth of cultural knowledge as well, they're functional members of their communities.

They are determined to be independent.

They dislike having to rely on others or ask for help, which is one of the contributions to I guess what I said earlier, that those who need it are sort of the least likely to participate.

However, their lives do have a sort of fragile stability that can be easily overturned by life events such as poor health, accidents, or job changes.

So we're going to look at addressing low literacy in adult readers.

Creating and enforcing qualities of the opportunity is going to be one of the most important things that you can do and to keep in mind, because they're likely thinking of all the reasons that they can't and shouldn't.

So traditional approaches to adult education do not -- to literacy education do not typically work well for adults.

They've got the -- they're wearing too many hats, they have a wealth of knowledge and experience on which to build learning, which can sometimes prevent new learning, because they're going to have to unlearn some things they've already relied on.

They seek to learn meaningful things that can be applied immediately.

And they have some situational barriers, childcare responsibilities, the perceived cost to them versus perceived benefit to them.

So it's costing me this much time, this much personal discomfort, this much travel versus how can I immediately use this.

Is it worth it.

And attitudes and feelings about school and learning that affect their decisions about further education.

This is also a big one because they have most often struggled through their academic learning places, they are not ready to engage in something that feels that way to them.

What are some other reasons you can think of that traditional sort of literacy education might not work as well for adults?

Lack of availability, access is a great one.

Yes.

Embarrassment is another one, good.

What are some group learnings that were very interesting, because, yes, in many ways they are less likely to engage in sort of a group dynamic because of like other people said, embarrassment, things like that, which is tough from trying to develop a program in a library sense, because you're trying to open it to groups of people.

So that's a difficult one to overcome.

Time management and patience.

Yes.

These are awesome.

I'm going to switch over to the next slide, but please finish out typing your thoughts here, because they are great, and they are great things to build upon while thinking of your programs and structuring them.

So some qualities and coping strategies.
 that you can use to your advantage, A, or to be prepared to encounter people coming in.

They're strong, resourceful, skilled, knowledgeable, they are often very technology literate, because they rely on it for information and communication.

Now, a sort of off branch of the low literacy community in some ways would be English as a second language.

So particularly the ESL community is very technology oriented.

They are extremely self-reliant and independent, often to the point of stubbornness.

So they like to learn the routine format of bills and forms, if that changes it affects them greatly because they have attached meaning less so to sort of the words of the bill, but instead to the spaces of the bill.

There's a lot of educated  guessing, and using written text for a specific purpose, such as some people will jot down words to look up in a dictionary  later.

And of course survival.

There is a lot of avoidance of situations where literacy or language demands exceed their skills.

They avoid it all together.

They're most likely to invest the time and energy in opportunities if those opportunities are provided in supportive environments that reduce the stigma attached to low literacy, if they utilize materials that play to their strengths, experiences, and goals that are pragmatic, that they can be successful at.

And that can be delivered in ways that allow both flexibility and choice so that they are learning at their own pace without feeling like they are moving too slowly.

And under conditions that can work best for them, because be many of you said, like we talked about, time constraints, life constraints, et cetera so these are things to think about as you build ideas around them.

Your main make or break factors are going to be courage on behalf of your reader.

So your first meeting is your most important.

It needs to be a positive, positive, positive, they have shame and embarrassment about revealing perhaps this long-kept secret.

They've learned to compensate, and past experiences with school and teachers that have been bad.

So looking at selecting texts for adults with low literacy is slightly different than looking for children.

We're in kind of a good era for this, sort of unprecedently because of the massive YA explosion some years back.

In terms of fiction, you've got a lot of enjoyable work with complex and often mature themes, but a higher readability.

The problem can be in many cases that the main characters often are children or young adults.

Some people won't necessarily mind and may even be more interested because they have children, they like children, they may be able to relate to the characters via their own children.

But it can hinder you sometimes from the standpoint that many reluctant readers want something that they themselves can see immediate benefit in.

Don't rely on readability formulas.

We've heard a lot about the schools and whatnot put a lot of focus on this in a lot of areas, they take a small sample of content and make assumptions about the rest from that sample.

So it's a guess really, rather than an analysis.

And the assumptions are also based around children and young readers generally.

Adults have life experiences that allow them to adapt to more nuanced context that it's assumed young readers have.

So don't rely on readability formulas.

They're not a huge help to you here.

Using clear language.

So the fewer words you can use the better.

Especially if they're coming to you with negative perceptions of school education books, et cetera having to listen to what sounds like a lecture is going to be a huge turn-off.

I always try to think 25 words or less.

Labeling.

Avoid common academic labeling.

So instead try to focus on structure and thematic content.

For example, in reference to YA, we think of it as YA.

It's a classification, it's a label, we don't think much of  it.

However, you may want to avoid using that label all together for a number of reasons with this population.

The breadth of options, subject matter, etc., is so new in that genre, older people will likely feel negatively toward it, thinking young adult fiction will be like Sweet Valley High or something.

Additionally, if literacy is something that they're  self-conscious about, or is affecting their self-esteem, you don't want to come off sounding like, this is a kids book.

One of the hardest things to overcome in terms of how to speak with adults with low literacy and suggesting text, avoiding words like "easy."

Right?

We think of, okay, this is an easy read.

Or let's look at some easy readers.

Even if it is a book with a  higher readability, it still may not be easy for them, and that would be a hugely discouraging label.

Alternatives to emphasize would be sort of more abstract qualities, you can say things like it's clear, it reads  smoothly.

It is the -- the author is straightforward in terms of the text.

But you also have the ability to emphasize the complexity of the characters and themes.

Abstract things that lend themselves to maturity without requiring concrete proof of ability.

You also want to find the words that your readers are using.

Listen.

So listen when you can get them to talk to you.

Listen to their vocabulary, listen to their sentence structure.

Listen to how they speak naturally.

Would they appreciate more descriptions?

Or are they short to the point?

And from that, what authors use words and create worlds that would be comfortable for them.

And another great strategy -- oh, a question here.

We've been looking for a name for our adult easy readers.

Yes, adult easy readers would be an extremely discouraging label in a lot of situations.

Because a great many of them will probably not find them  easy.

And so they'll be reluctant to continue trying.

Let me think on that and I will try to get back to you, but also anybody else that saw that question pop up, help your brother or sister out, because you all are super creative.

And I'm not saying libraries should remove those labels from books at all, I'm saying when suggesting a book to an adult with low literacy, just avoid sort of verbally classifying things like that.

Back to some strategies, very helpful one I've always found has been any time you can incorporate a dual modality.

For example, if you have both an audio book and they have a physical book, having sort of both -- engaging both of those senses can really help as well as the sort of repetition of hearing it while seeing these words will help their own literacy over time.

Another great place to look for some strategies would be the toolkit and the Victoria Australia resource that we have links for as a place to start looking for ideas that utilize some of these concepts or great anchors and starting off points.

I love you all engaging with each other.

Wonderful.

Sorry, hi to scroll back through -- I had to scroll back through and see how lovely you guys are.

So we're going to move forward with an activity.

A little bit of an exercise  here.

You guys have been awesome engaging with me and with each other in the chat, so we're going to continue doing that for this.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to provide you some profiles of some struggling readers.

What I'd like you to do is say what do you think is important to keep in mind about this person, and I would like you to think of a recommendation of -- one fiction, one nonfiction resource, preferably.

And kind of keep in mind why you chose that.

If we have time, I'd like to also hear kind of your general thoughts about this person as a librarian.

Where does your brain go when talking to them or about them, what kind of questions would you ask them, so those types of things.

So it's going to be a sort of very open-ended chat.

I apologize if there are a little -- if they're a little text heavy, but I wanted to sort of get the complete experience.

So we're going to look at our profile number one.

Here is what we know.

We know Michaela Stone is a  32-year-old white, female refugee from Belarus.

Two years ago, she emigrated with her father.

She has a Russian bachelor's degree in accounting, and a master's in accountancy  teaching, she had been teaching accounting and statistics in a college there.

She lives alone, she those a few of her neighbors, her father lives nearby in subsidized  housing.

She currently works as a bookkeeper with a nonprofit community center.

Although she speaks English with her coworkers, much of her job requires her to speak Russian.

To supplement her income, she works seven hours a week as a bookkeeper for a small dental practice.

And in addition, she still cooks and cleans for her father, which leaves her very little free time for community activities or continuing education.

Most of her free time is spent reading, in both English and Russian.

In order to help her assimilate, she watches T.V. to gain cultural information and get ideas for conversation.

Her goal is to improve her English so that she can pass the Test of English for Foreign Learners and enroll in college.

She did take it once, she was 10 points away from passing, and she says she'll take it again when she has time to study.

So chat for a minute about what is important to keep in mind about Michaela, and what are her two sources -- what are two sources you'd recommend and why.

She's not illiterate, but she would fall into the category of adults with low literacy because she has low literacy in English.
.

I love libraries so much.

Somebody meet her at lunchtime to practice English.

I love you.

That's such a wonderful answer.

Magazine articles.

She takes initiative, good.

She might be a visual learner.

T.V. helps her.

Discussion partner, awesome.

Good, yes, I see a lot of you picking up on the fact to keep in mind that she is -- she is educated.

Shis not illiterate.

But she does have low literacy, so she would fall into this profile.

A lot of times people disregard potential intelligence, of people with broken English or people who don't speak English well.

It's great you're keeping that in mind.

Yes.

It's interesting that low literacy and being educated can be linked.

That's one of these assumptions that are very prominent.

But we need to sort of work to overcome in deal with some of these populations in order to best help.

You guys are coming up with great ideas, so just a reminder that you can access the chat again afterwards.

So to come up with a great list of potential resources that you might use in similar situations.

So goods job.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: I'm seeing a lot of great ideas that involve community engagement, whether it's gathering folks from simple grant communities, or partnering with outside agencies, certainly.

One thing that I was curious as you were talking about skills employment related skills, I know there are libraries that partner with local employers on programming related to job applications or recertification for food handler permits, things like that that are more targeted towards steps that maybe that employer needs the employees to take and sometimes really great robust library discovery experiences then happen.

If the library goes to the employee -- the employer and has a program, many of those folks, because of their limited literacy skills, or their embarrassment or whatever, are hesitant to go to the library, but that relationship then gets nush churd when they -- when the libraries go to their environment.

So I know that's been a powerful partnership -- partnerships are huge in this area.

>> KATHARINE WARE: Yes, absolutely great points.

And potential resources for her.

You guys are coming up with wonderful stuff.

Love it.

Okay.

So that was our first one.

I have one other profile for you that we're going to take a look at.

Sort of completely different demographic of low literacy adult.

We'll have the same questions.

So I'll go through the profile, and then I'll just remind you what the broad questions are so we can keep on target there.

Our next profile is of Tom Addington.

He is a 27-year-old laborer who lives with his wife and three young children in a rented house in a rural area.

He describes himself as a family man, and his children are very important to him.

He does mostly seasonal farm labor and is currently paid by the hour in exchange for rent, but next year he hopes to grow his own tobacco on shares since he owns no land of his own.

He does not have a bank account, he has never filed a tax return.

The family receives food stamps and is on WIC.

He has never been able to get a driver's license due to his low reading skills.

He lives in an area where the only public transportation is the school bus, and the shopping town is 20 miles away.

To shop, go to the doctor, or visit his kids' school, he and his wife have to ask family members for a ride.

He dropped out of school when he was 17 and he feels a lot of resentment towards school because he never learned to read well.

He is confident in his -- that should say math skills, and possesses strong technical skills.

His only adult schooling occurred in a correctional institute when he was, all you know is, in a little bit of trouble.

He was pleased with the experience, though, but admits  "i'm kinda bashful, you know, because I won't let anybody just come in and try to learn me to read, something like that, because I know it makes them angry, and then I get angry and just don't want to do nothing."

So this is your sort of introduction to Tom.

So again, I'd like to hear your wonderful ideas about what you think is important to keep in mind about him, a fiction and a nonfiction resource you might recommend.

And why.













I think all of your thoughts about involving his children in it as well.

Lots of reassurance, yes.

Absolutely.

Asked about what his goals are, good.

Yes.

Good to ask some questions too.

Graphic novels might be helpful, yeah.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: I'm curious if libraries, I know with summer reading, many are doing an adult version of summer reading, but how great would it be if it addressed family literacy issues and bridged the parent with the summer reading program, kind of in their own way along with their kids.

But what a great program -- existing program to sort of adjust some of the welcoming messages for those low literacy readers.

>> KATHARINE WARE: Absolutely, that sounds like something that could be tweaked to have a side by side sort of benefit to both.

That's a good idea, I like the car and driver, popular mechanics type thing, lots of pictures might interest some of his technical hobbies.

He very well may be one for sort of a more one-on-one  environment, unless it's in dealing with his kids, like you guys have said.

Wonderful.

Mentorship model might be nice.

Wonderful.

Fantastic ideas.

I will just remind everyone that the chat will be available afterwards because everybody is having some fantastic thoughts.

All right.

So I'm going to move forward here.

I will change the slide in a second.

But finish up your thoughts  here.

So we've looked at these two sort of very disparate profiles.

And as you all know, there are so many pieces of information that we may never get out of people.

A lot of you have the same thought where you were like, I would ask him this or I want to know this.

Things that would help us understand their needs, or things that we wish that we  knew.

The two profiles that you just saw are actually profiles of real people taken from a study done by the Center for Literacy Studies at the University of  Tennessee in the '90s called Life at the Margins Profiles of Adults with Low Literacy Skills.

I thought that I would give you some of the information that you may not have gotten from the initial profile that maybe through the right line of question can you could have gotten, or not through -- not through the right line of questioning, things that you might never have learned.

Information that exists  regardless of your knowledge of it.

So Michaela, things that you don't know about Michaela.

When she first came to the U.S. she spoke no English and forced her self to read for one hour every day.

She enrolled in several education classes, a basic literacy course, an accounting course, and two English classes.

She carried a dictionary with her as she said, always with me for two years.

In my purse.

When she first arrived, she worked as a cleaner in an apartment building.

Quote -- people would tell me that I couldn't get a job as an accountant.

You can get a job at a hotel or cleaning up someone's mess.

Why they did that, I don't know.

It was a misinstruction.

It made me feel like I was nothing.

She has begun to teach Russian to three Americans.

She says, "we read and write and speak both Russian and English.

Maybe one hour, two hours a  week.

Then I learn something about American lifestyle.

Cultural exchange.

To meet American people.

To learn something from them."

And some things that you didn't know about Tom.

Tom's house has a few amenities.

There is no water, there's no bathroom in the house.

Most of Tom's life is taken up by his children.

He says, "I love my kids very much.

And I guess the biggest majority is taking care of them.

I don't mind that too bad, because if a man's gonna amount to anything, he's gotta get out there and work for it.

It's kind of hard every day, because I never know where I'm going to get ahold of the next penny at."

When he was in classes at a -- the correctional institute, he was surprised to learn he was only at a third grade level.

And when he was in school, he those they just passed me to get rid of me.

They wouldn't try to learn me nothing, so I quit going.

I was willing to learn how to read, grow up to be, you know, maybe something better than what I'm doing now besides farm work, maybe be on a public job, making good money, something like that.

Doing carpenter work or something."

So I suppose what I believe is one of the most important things to take from our time today is the fact that adults with low literacy require you to sort of disengage from advisory  processes that are automatic or that usually work.

Because so many times you're dealing with something different entirely.

So that wraps up our main time, and I am happy to use the next few minutes for some Q and A.

Or for you to share your thoughts.

If you think of anything later or if you have a question that I wasn't able to get to, or, you know, anything you'd like to  ask, you can feel free to email me.

I will get back to you.

I can't promise the immediacy, but it will be relatively soon, I won't leave you hanging forever.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: Fantastic.

Thanks so much, Katharine, and yes, please post your questions here or I encourage you if you have other strategies or  examples of ways that you've been successful in working, in empowering low literacy adults, it would be great to hear from you as well.

There were a few things that came up earlier on that I thought would be great to get your thoughts on.

Somebody mentioned basic needs are not necessarily met, so how do you get to these literacy needs?

And then I know that as we were talking, there were lots of examples of the kinds of everyday needs that require them to increase their literacy or that they need assistance in  getting those tests done.

So that was where I was kind of trying to think about the kinds of examples of times when the pairing of the information need is paired with that supporting early literacy.

So -- or not early -- adult literacy, so, yeah, I just -- I'm curious if you have other ideas around how folks come to lie brings, obviously with key challenges or needs and getting to that understanding they have low literacy.

So I don't know if you have other thoughts about that.

There are definitely other questions coming in too.

>> KATHARINE WARE: In terms of the basic needs not being met versus how can we address the literacy needs when they -- there's no food on the table, things like that, while those are very hard situations for us to address, you can either use that information to your advantage if possible, if the situation allows it, like somebody said if Tom, for example, had a broken tractor, which obviously his life in some ways depends on, maybe you can look at manuals, or Car and Driver, things like that, where in order to fix this need, he's practicing literacy as well.

Any time that you can combine the things like that is great.

Times that you can't, for example, I guess I'll go back to my first thought of, there's no food on the table, so how can we address literacy?

In that case those two things are two sort of unrelated.

You can't address that first  one.

You can show them sort of the importance of improving your literacy will -- can lead to more opportunities, more money, things like that.

And then help them get there through maybe it's through job applications or maybe it's through self-help, learning to speak with people so that maybe they would like to get a promotion to a manager, or something.

So if they learn more conflict resolution, that would help  them.

Things like that.

But it's not always -- you're not always going to have a kind of direct line to help like we wish we did.

So that one unfortunately there's not always a direct path there.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: Yeah.

It definitely -- from our work, a lot of the work that WebJunction has been supporting in relation to whether it's public health issues, or workforce development issues, or -- yeah.

It feels like there's -- that sort of inventory that folks do for accessibility, they need to be adding adult low literacy to that inventory.

So that if you're hosting a program, somebody mentioned census work, or certainly related I would say related to workforce development, being able to pair and bring those folks into the hole, you know, have that be accessible for them as well.

Seems like a great piece.

And definitely folks have mentioned -- I plugged in a resource from a long time ago, but it's up to date in terms of ideas for partnering with school public library partnerships that definitely are more family literacy oriented that address both the adult learner as well as the young learner in that family.

So definitely I encourage folks to think about that.

And local literacy agencies certainly are finding creative ways to integrate that learning into sort of the everyday challenges that folks are experiencing.

There was another, let's see, we've got a few more questions here.

Somebody mentioned that it's easy to incentivize learning to read for children.

Might be a little more difficult with adults, but have you heard of other ways that incentivizing adults has been successful?

>> KATHARINE WARE: One of the biggest incentives is going to be intrinsic.

It's going to be success.

The feeling of success, the feeling of accomplishment.

Having done something that they are proud of.

Those are going to be the things that get them to continue, that get them to try something  harder.

So any ways that you can set up for them to succeed, any scaffolding that you can give them to sort of help them achieve whatever goal you're working toward on their own, that is going to be a huge driving factor.

In their continuation.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: And it seems like somebody mentioned, I think a couple people mentioned earlier on that trust is really key.

So it seems like building -- if you can set some goals with  them, where they're going to be checking in with you, or letting -- maybe build that excitement about checking in with you, so I think building that trust and those relationships is really key to this kind of learning.

>> KATHARINE WARE: Absolutely.

It absolutely is.

You will need to sort of be -- be safe.

And by nature I think libraries are that for people.

I think people do feel safe in libraries, so that's something that you all intrinsically already have.

But it needs -- your  interactions should be positive, as judgment-free as possible, you are the stress-free interaction of their day.

Checking in with you.

It should be something that they almost look forward to.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: That's excellent.

There's a great question, somebody said, what are some ways to promote programs in areas where lower rates of literacy are more common?

This is something that I know comes up in terms of signage, or flyers, or are you using social media channels, so feel free, folks, to post in your suggestions.

I know that this is definitely, again, an area where partnering, if they do have children, partnering with the schools in your community so that if you create a flyer for your school partnership programming, make sure that it's got -- it's accounting for low literacy  readers that are going to be seeing that.

So things like that being proactive from the very  beginning of the process to know how accessible those messages will be and which channels they're put through.

So, yeah, that's an excellent question.

>> KATHARINE WARE: That was an excellent point.

>> JENNIFER PETERSON: All right.

Well, we are at the top of the hour.

And there have been so many fantastic contributions to chat, so definitely know that that chat will be available.

I will pull out any of the links that you all shared there, thank you to those that provided those links.

And a reminder that the guides, those profiles that Katharine worked through are available in that guide if you want to bring it to your team to work through.

And then there's some additional steps in the learner guide, I encourage you to use those, again, to take next steps and take action with your learning.

Thank you so much Katharine, this has been fantastic.

An excellent resource for folks to continue to serve their communities.

Thank you for all of you for attending, thanks to our  captioner.

A reminder that I'll send you an email later today once the recording and all the other treasures are posted, and I'll also send you an email, or a certificate within the week for attending.

You don't need to request that.

I'm also going to send you, as you leave, to a short survey.

We love your feedback, we share that with our presenters, and it helps us in our ongoing  programming.

So thank you so much.

That link will also be in the email I send you so if you have to head back to the desk, know that you can return to the survey as well.

So thank you all so much.

And thank you Katharine, and everyone have a great rest of your week.

>> KATHARINE WARE: Thank you all for having me.

It was a pleasure.

Have a wonderful day.