About Us

What we do

Project Literacy of Bergen County provides hope and opportunity for adults who cannot read, write or speak English. It oversees a free tutoring program for the people of Bergen County and the surrounding area. It administers a scholarship program to the disadvantaged in the community who wish to attend literacy classes at the Bergen Community College

Ciarco Learning Center through its Carmen Pichardo Scholarship. It also gives referrals to the other basic literacy, English, and GED preparation programs available in the various municipalities of Bergen County.

Project Literacy believes that everyone has the right to read and succeed. It helps to end social problems such as poverty, welfare dependency, and crime by helping committed students see tangible differences in their lives and lives of their children.

Our current priority is to increase the reach and effectiveness of our volunteer tutoring program. The program assesses the needs of its students in three major areas: reading, spoken English, and readiness for the high school equivalency exam. It also does an assessment of the volunteer's background and availability.

All volunteers are given 12 hours of formal training in either Basic Literacy or ESL (English as a Second Language). No prior teaching experience is necessary on the part of the volunteers to become a tutor. They need only to be vitally interested in helping another adult to read or to speak English and to be available for at least one hour a week for a period of one year.

The Project Literacy staff will match the volunteer with a student whose learning needs and availability are compatible. The staff also provides support to help tutors to develop their skills. Additional in-service training is available twice yearly.

Assessment and accountability is an important part of the Project Literacy program. Tutors evaluate their students at the start of their work together and after every 50 hours of instruction to determine progress. The staff will review these assessments with the volunteers in light of the student's goals and help them to make necessary changes.

Staff members work continuously with their own program self-assessment tools to measure the ongoing effectiveness of the volunteer tutor program as a whole.

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... help an adult learn to read

… promote literacy in Bergen County

… for yourself, a family member or friend

355 Main Street Hackensack, New Jersey
07601 (201 ) 489-7066 | Fax: (201) 968-9732
read@project-literacy.org