Literacy

The word was tristeza. It's a disease of citrus trees, but more importantly, for Tobey Roland, it once scored 228 points for him in a game of Scrabble, he said. Roland, 52, of Mount Washington, loves Scrabble and estimates he has played in 120 tournaments, winning eight to 10, since he started playing competitively in 2005. "It's fun and challenging," said Roland, an independent financial investor. "It's really more about probabilities, using premium spots and letters and getting bonuses by using seven-letter words.

If you ever find yourself looking for an excuse to eat more cupcakes, 11-year-old Krissa Hillman has a good one. The fifth-grader from Bollman Bridge Elementary School in Jessup is the creative mastermind behind Cupcakes for Literacy, a business that sells baked goods to benefit local schools, libraries and reading programs. "Literacy is a big part of life. You have to read everything," Hillman said. "So what better way to help people understand than though something everyone likes?"

If you ever find yourself looking for an excuse to eat more cupcakes, 11-year-old Krissa Hillman has a good one. The fifth-grader from Bollman Bridge Elementary School in Jessup is the creative mastermind behind Cupcakes for Literacy, a business that sells baked goods to benefit local schools, libraries and reading programs. "Literacy is a big part of life. You have to read everything," Hillman said. "So what better way to help people understand than though something everyone likes?"

The word was tristeza. It's a disease of citrus trees, but more importantly, for Tobey Roland, it once scored 228 points for him in a game of Scrabble, he said. Roland, 52, of Mount Washington, loves Scrabble and estimates he has played in 120 tournaments, winning eight to 10, since he started playing competitively in 2005. "It's fun and challenging," said Roland, an independent financial investor. "It's really more about probabilities, using premium spots and letters and getting bonuses by using seven-letter words.

In his recent commentary article ("Kids need environmental literacy," July 28) our governor praised the students at Kennard Elementary School in Queen Anne's County for building "a marsh in their own schoolyard." Did the EPA's required environmental impact study actually approve this project? It is my understanding that marshlands or wetlands or whatever he wants to call them are breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes. Right next to the children's school! And what in the world does he mean by "environmental literacy"?

With books in hand, hundreds of prominent black male city leaders and community members will descend on classrooms around the city Monday to read to students, part of an initiative to promote literacy and positive male influences in the lives of city youth. The effort called the "Michael Penny Carter Men Reading in Baltimore City Schools Initiative," was introduced in the city by Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the local the National Action Network, last fall. The program was inspired by a similar one in Chicago, and has drawn the support of local political, education, and religious leaders across the city.

DURHAM, N.C. - James Earl Jones' commanding bass is so recognizable, even a hermit could place it immediately. It's Mufasa, the papa lion in Disney's hit The Lion King, it's Darth Vader in Star Wars. It has an air of compassion, of wisdom and omnipotence. And yet this Hollywood star spent the better part of his childhood with his mouth closed, plagued by a severe stutter. "It was so bad that I didn't speak at all," Jones, 74, told 200 students at a literacy celebration this week in Durham.

The way South Baltimore businessman Jules Edward "Sonny" Morstein Jr., sees it, he owes something to the community in which his family has prospered. "This city has given me a good life," said Morstein, 65. "How can I not give back?" Nearly 25 years ago, several business owners along South Baltimore's Light Street asked one of their own to help renew their shopping district. Morstein, who runs the city's oldest family-owned jewelry store, stepped into the role of president of the Federal Hill Business Association.

Baltimore Reads Executive Director Marlene C. McLaurin took over last month as head of the area's premier literacy organization. McLaurin, 56, most recently was senior executive vice president of United Way of Central Maryland and interim chief operating officer of the Baltimore Urban League. A former second-grade teacher, she earned her bachelor's degree in elementary education from Hampton University in Virginia and her master's degree in early childhood education from Southern Connecticut State College.

CHILDREN'S BOOKS line the North Avenue office of Tom Bowmann, and they're not there for decoration. "I try to read one every day," says Baltimore's first director of reading. "It's amazing how reading a child's book with adult eyes puts a different light on things. It's very helpful in my new job." Bowmann, 50, will need all the help he can get. All he has to do, as prescribed by a school system "Reading by 9" task force in a report issued in May, is get a handle on the city's many reading programs, evaluate them, eliminate the ineffective ones and beef up those that work.

When today's high school seniors started kindergarten in 2000, there was no iPhone, text messaging was hardly used, and very few K-12 students took online classes. While virtually every other arena has seen rapid change over the past decade, K-12 education has remained virtually the same. However, we cannot successfully educate today's students to succeed in tomorrow's world with yesterday's curriculum and instructional methods. Together, we at the Baltimore County Board of Education and Baltimore County Public Schools propose to propel our school system and students forward with a bold new theory of action.

After school three days a week, Alexis Corbin, 16, a junior at Carver Vocational-Technical High School, walks the short distance to Coppin State University. There, she and 10 other students participate in the Comcast Digital Connectors Program at the Coppin Heights-Rosemont Family Computer Center on campus. They learn about computers, financial literacy and leadership, and in turn bring their knowledge to the community, by leading classes on such topics as how to use social media, operate cell phones or create website pages.

GED and adult literacy instructors in Baltimore are grateful to Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke for being attentive to the challenges faced by city residents in gaining employment and admission to college as evidenced in the recent hearing regarding the GED program ("GED test takers face obstacles," Oct. 1). Baltimore and GED students can ill afford the longer wait times for diplomas, the reduction in the number of available sites, and significantly increased testing fees. With anticipated growth in the number of Baltimore residents who will be enrolling in GED programs, the current situation presents unfortunate and unconscionable barriers to moving people out of poverty and improving the literacy and employment rates in the city.

The McDonald's Family Restaurants of Greater Baltimore honored Christina O'Neill, the Harford County Teacher of the Year, Monday evening at the McDonald's restaurant on Baltimore Pike in Bel Air. The McDonald's McTeacher of the Year Night provides members of the Bel Air Middle School community and other Harford County residents the opportunity to thank O'Neill for her commitment to education. McDonald's will donate a portion of all sales earned during the event to Bel Air Middle School and surprised O'Neill with several gifts.

It probably comes as no surprise to those of us who have read our kids' composition papers, but a new study by Penn State researchers finds that text messaging is eroding the literacy skills of our tweens. The survey of 228 students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, found that those kids who use "techspeak" when they text scored lower on grammar assessment tests. The study was published in New Media and Society . With techspeak kids use phonetic spelling or abbreviations to make texting faster.

With books in hand, hundreds of prominent black male city leaders and community members will descend on classrooms around the city Monday to read to students, part of an initiative to promote literacy and positive male influences in the lives of city youth. The effort called the "Michael Penny Carter Men Reading in Baltimore City Schools Initiative," was introduced in the city by Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the local the National Action Network, last fall. The program was inspired by a similar one in Chicago, and has drawn the support of local political, education, and religious leaders across the city.

You wouldn't be reading this story right now if Mark McGwire weren't practically addicted to Starbucks coffee.The guy's been drinking it for 10 years. The home-run world record holder even convinced his team, the St. Louis Cardinals, to serve the coffee in the clubhouse, allowing him to down it in the dugout all season long.McGwire's spokesman can't explain exactly what the attraction is here. But it's the reason why this baseball season, every time McGwire hits a home run, Seattle-based Starbucks will donate $5,000 to a literacy organization in the city where the home run is hit.Last year, McGwire homered 70 times, setting a major league record.

READING AROUND the world is a feminist and civil rights issue. Here's why:Of the estimated 125 million children not attending primary school in developing countries, two-thirds are girls.Of the world's nearly 1 billion illiterate adults, two-thirds are women.Enormous gaps exist between the educational attainment of the rich and of the poor within countries. In many, the majority of children from the poorest households get no schooling at all.These startling figures are from a report of the World Bank, which is spending some $14 billion to help educate poor people in 87 countries.

Gardening held little appeal to Stacey Watkins, a Baltimore special-education teacher, until an organization that helps keep her classroom in books put out a call for help with an urban planting project. She soon found her manicured hands could do wonders with dirt. Within a few hours last week, Watkins, who dug unencumbered by garden gloves, had planted straight rows of broccoli, kale, cauliflower and all manner of herbs in a vacant, long-neglected lot along Park Heights Avenue.

A friend encouraged Shelly Abrams to volunteer at the South Baltimore Learning Center. Now, more than 21 years later, she still donates many hours a week to the nonprofit, which offers literacy and life-skills training to more than 1,000 adults each year. "I lived in the neighborhood then and thought, 'Why not?'" she said. "I took the training course, started tutoring and quickly became involved. I never really left. " A lifelong Baltimore resident, she grew up in a family of educators.