Our mission statement is:

• To focus attention on literacy.

• To provide instruction to individuals with limited literacy skills.

• To empower students to achieve their goals so that they may be contributing members of the community.

2008 Board Members:

We always welcome prospective new Board members who are dedicated to our organization as well as committee members interested in fundraising (Love of Literacy luncheon, 5K Race/Walk, Tea Party direct mailing), PR/marketing, community events, and tutor training.  Please call if you are interested! 

History/Purpose

Literacy Services of Indian River County, Inc. is a non-profit corporation that had its origins in 1971 when eight local community residents came together to assist adults who needed to improve their literacy skills.  Our organization provides free, confidential and individualized literacy instruction to adults who request assistance in improving their reading, writing, or English skills.  We tutor at the pace of the student.  Besides one-to-one tutoring, we also provide tutoring in small group levels when requested by our students or when a church or employer requests that we initiate a program at their site.  All students are encouraged to read to their children if they have kids.  In addition, we provide family literacy events.

The organization focuses on phonics, an internationally proven method. In particular, the Laubach Method is one of our primary teaching methods.  Other teaching materials, including the Challenger book series, LifePrints, Oxford Pictures Dictionaries, Reading Horizons, spelling, writing, grammar, and other related materials are utilized.

Tutor Volunteer Efforts

All tutors are volunteers.  Prospective tutors attend a ½ day workshop to learn about our organization and tutoring techniques.  After attending a workshop a tutor will then be matched with a student.  Once matched, it is the tutor’s responsibility to contact the student and set up a time and meeting place convenient to the tutor and student.  A tutoring session generally lasts 90 minutes and occurs primarily twice a week (some tutor students once a week).  All tutoring takes place in a public facility such as a library, church, or worksite.  The organization gladly accepts seasonal tutors and a number of our tutors are only in town several months of the year.

Funding

Literacy Services of Indian River County is a United Way agency.  The organization receives a significant portion of its funding through individual private donations.  We do NOT receive any money from the government and we are not part of the library system. Without support from the community our organization would not be able to exist.