Feb 29
2024
It’s not just kids who struggle to read
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Leah Walter teaches English as a second language to adults. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel.
Before escaping to the United States as a refugee, Baseme Muiza didn’t know how to read. She didn’t speak English. She hadn’t spent a single day in a classroom, nor had she ever received a formal education in her native Swahili.
“She didn’t know nothing at all, but now she can express herself a little bit more,” Muiza said through the help of a translator, Maggie Baundea.
She’s not alone.
One in six adults in Erie and Niagara counties only have the most basic literacy skills. Thousands of others remain “functionally illiterate,” according to the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.
“The single most important determinant in a person’s success in life is their ability to read,” said Amy Mazur, Literacy Buffalo Niagara’s director of operations. “They might be able to read, but it’s a very literal type of reading.”
In time, Muiza would beat the odds. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Muiza fled years of bloody conflicts that have resulted in millions of deaths.
Today, she and her children, now five in total, call Buffalo their home.
Since coming here seven years ago, Muiza, 29, has attended adult education classes through the Buffalo Public Schools Adult Education Division. When she began, she was one of the nearly 150,000 adults in Erie and Niagara counties lacking basic reading skills.
“If she didn’t come to school, such as this, she would have been the same way she was back home,” Muiza’s translator said.
An adult student works on a lesson in English class. Photo by Garrett Looker.
Illiteracy is a generational cycle, experts said. When parents cannot read, their children may struggle as well.
“It has such a ripple effect on everything,” Mazur said.
Throughout Western New York’s 99 school districts, thousands of children aren’t reading and writing at grade level. Last spring, almost 30 percent of students in third through eighth grade across the region scored at the lowest level in English Language Arts, according to the New York State Education Department.
As the director of adult education for Buffalo Public Schools, Amanda Vellake has witnessed how childhood literacy is compounded by the thousands of adult learners who struggle.
“We understand that Buffalo city proper has high illiteracy rates, high poverty rates, and high unemployment,” Vellake said. “Adult education is here to help them with those obstacles to try and remove those. I’ll admit, it’s very tenuous to try and capture those people.”
If parents do not attempt to raise their own reading ability, “it will ultimately have a negative impact on those kids and the opportunities they have, as well,” Mazur said.
That’s one of the reasons Muiza was intent on learning to read, her interpreter said. She knows her own education is pivotal if her children are to succeed.
Removing obstacles to education
Along the wall of the hallway in an old school building on Buffalo’s West Side, a large map of the United States hangs next to students’ artwork. An arrow points to the city of Buffalo, stating “You Are Here.”
A map stating “You Are Here,” hangs on the wall of the adult education school. Photo by Garrett Looker.
The sounds of words spill out of a classroom at the end of the hall, as students string together short sentences and the pronunciation of letters.
“She is swimming,” one voice says.
“Work together,” another says.
These classrooms are filled with individuals from around the world. Some have fled wars, like a Russian student who escaped after his home country invaded Ukraine. Others have lived their entire lives in Buffalo.
They’ve turned to places like the adult school at the corner of Herkimer and Albany streets, looking for a second chance at achieving what they lost or never had.
Those are the classrooms where Muiza has learned to read, write, and speak English. Some students like her have done the same. Others have honed their mathematical skills, attained GEDs, and gone on to achieve collegiate degrees.
Muiza’s school is one of 15 locations in the Buffalo Public Schools Adult Education Division.
About two-thirds of the estimated 2,500 students enrolled are English language learners. Others may have dropped out of high school in the past.
“We’re trying to remove all the obstacles to getting their education,” Vellake said.
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Baundea, Muiza’s translator, immigrated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well. She left the war-torn country and has been in the United States for seven years.
A former student of the adult education system herself, Baundea now works as a career advisor.
“I know how to deal with different situations and be there for them, because I’ve been there,” Baundea said. “I was a little bit hopeless back home … But my hope got even better because there is a community that is supported.”
Still, thousands of adults throughout Erie and Niagara counties are nearly illiterate. While these individuals may be able to read simple sentences, anything beyond that is a mounting task, experts said.
When it comes to reading medical prescriptions, job applications, or even their own child’s homework, these adults may struggle immensely. Less than half of all adults in Erie and Niagara counties read at proficient levels, according to Literacy Buffalo Niagara.
Individuals who struggle to read earn nearly $30,000 less a year than someone who has a “minimum level for proficiency in literacy,” according to a 2020 Gallup analysis.
When adults learn how to read, they experience personal growth that not only affects their lives, but the communities around them, said Leah Walter, who has taught English as a second language at the Adult Education Division for nearly 11 years.
“We read every single day of our lives,” Walter said. “I have many students that are parents, and they have children at home. And if the children are learning to read, it only helps if their mothers and fathers can also read. And they can bond and share in that experience.”
‘It doesn’t happen in a year’
The process of raising someone’s reading ability is arduous, riddled with setbacks and struggles, literacy experts say. At only a few hours of instruction a week, it can take years to raise their reading ability.
Literacy Buffalo Niagara tries to help. While the Buffalo adult education program offers classroom training in a variety of subjects to thousands of students, Literacy Buffalo Niagara focuses specifically on adult reading ability. The organization offers one-on-one tutoring to approximately 200 adults each year through volunteers as well as partnerships with organizations like the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.
Mazur, who has worked for Literacy Buffalo Niagara for nearly two decades, said the organization has nearly 100 volunteer tutors.
Getting the appropriate resources to the people that need them most has become even more difficult since the pandemic, Mazur said. Volunteer numbers have dropped.
But the biggest challenge, according to Mazur, is always the responsibilities adults shoulder.
“Adults don’t have the luxury of just going to school every day like children do,” Mazur said. “For children, that’s their only requirement. It’s their only responsibility in life is to go to school and learn. But with adults, we have families, we have healthcare needs, we have jobs. And all of those things take priority.”
When parents do find the time to prioritize their own education, Mazur said the entire family could benefit. Still, that commitment to raising one’s reading ability can take years.
“It doesn’t happen in a year. It doesn’t happen in two years,” Mazur said. “Students can be in our program for a number of years without seeing the final goal of being able to read independently.”
An empty adult education classroom on Buffalo’s West Side. Photo by Garrett Looker.
Mazur and Vellake both spoke to the struggles of enrolling more students and keeping them in the classroom. Some individuals may feel hopeless. Others may not even know adult education services exist, they said.
All the while, awareness of the childhood “literacy crisis” has risen throughout the state.
Lawmakers and education advocates in Albany have pitched possible solutions to solving the issue of low rates of childhood literacy — especially those in impoverished, minority communities.
But Mazur and Vellake said childhood literacy is only one side of the issue. The “literacy crisis” cannot be solved without focusing on adult education, as well.
“It would be extremely difficult to see a vast improvement in childrens’ reading levels if similar resources weren’t given or provided to the adults’ literacy world,” Mazur said. “We still have to consider the adults and how much they can support their children.”
A better tomorrow
Today, Baseme Muiza speaks in a slow, soft tone, flipping between English and her native Swahili.
She still attends school at the corner of Herkimer and Albany streets. One day, she hopes to have the skills that will lead to a job where she can truly express herself.
Beyond employment, Muiza looks forward to a day where she can do larger things, like buy a house for her family.
The adult education program has given her more than the skills to read and speak, she said. It has given her confidence.
It has given her hope.
But more importantly, Muiza hopes her education will give her children a better chance in life.
“They’re looking up to her,” Muiza’s translator said.
