Literacy

Frances Coleman couldn't speak. She couldn't read. She didn't, she recalls, know much of anything. She wanted so much to learn, but no one would teach her. She grew up in a home for retarded people. That was before she met Kitty Seminole, a 77-year-old woman confined to a wheelchair who tutored Coleman three days a week, two hours a lesson, for the last 13 years. Now Coleman, who has cerebral palsy, can talk. She can read, she knows her math. Earlier this summer, Coleman got her general equivalency diploma.

TODAY, THERESA Kellenbenz is reading this column. Until recently, this is something the 65-year-old great-grandmother could not do. "I can read words now, books. " Kellenbenz, a wisp of a woman, glows when she says this. "I've read about 15 books. Not real high books, but I read them. " That would be a big enough accomplishment for anyone. But as nurturing grandmothers tend to do, Kellenbenz wanted her family to share in her success. So, shortly after starting the literacy tutoring program last year at the Lutheran Settlement House in Fishtown, Kellenbenz encouraged her 46-year-old daughter, Dawn Marston, to join.

Michael B. Steinberg has been elected chairman of the board of trustees of the Madlyn and Leonard Abramson Center for Jewish Life , a nonprofit Horsham provider of services to seniors. He recently was the board's first vice chairman. Steinberg is vice president and a principal at The Montgomery Benefits Group, Jenkintown. The following were elected to the board: Donald A. Berg , manager of Linnbrook Management Co. L.L.C., Philadelphia. Andy I. Bronstein , president of Lighthouse Services Inc., Blue Bell.

STRETCHING TALL FOR A TALE, 4-year-old Becky Ellis points to a book her father, Cheltenham Township Commissioner Tom Ellis, is reading at Elkins Park Free Library. Rachael Ellis, 2, also listened Wednesday at "Night of 1,000 Stars - The Great American Read Aloud," a national event promoting literacy.

Numerous people, including me, sometimes suspect that television is reducing the overall reading skill of the American people. So it's nice to hear that ABC and PBS, in their first cooperative effort, have joined in a program to improve the national literacy level. Project Literacy U.S. (PLUS) is a year-long effort aimed in particular at increasing the reading skills of adults. Locally, it was officially begun yesterday when Mayor Goode announced it at a meeting of broadcasters, community leaders, corporate executives, clergy and literacy-project specialists at WHYY (Channel 12)

A LEJANDRO Gac-Artigas, 24, of Center City, wants to eradicate the literacy gap among Philly's schoolchildren. Two years ago, the Harvard grad and then-first-grade teacher at Pan American Academy Charter School founded the nonprofit Springboard Collaborative to run a summer-reading program. This summer, Springboard expects to have 960 students in the program.   Q: What's your background? A: From 2009 to 2011, I taught 34 students literacy and social studies. I also got a master's degree at night from the School of Graduate Education at Penn and I was tapped for Wharton's Venture Initiation Program.

Graterford Prison will receive a $100,000 grant of computer equipment and instructional material from a national literacy campaign run by Opportunities Industrialization Centers and Coors Brewing Co. Deborah Scott, assistant national literacy director for OIC, said the campaign decided to start a pilot project in a prison because "we recognize that a lot of problems with crime and drugs are related to illiteracy. " Donald Vaughn, Graterford's superintendent, said he believed increasing literacy will "reduce recidivism, since inmates who learn to read and advance their educational levels are less likely to return to prison once they are released.