HUNTINGTON BEACH : Literacy Group Gets $5,000 for Center

The United Way of Orange County has given a literacy group $5,000 to convert a storage room at the city’s main library into a facility with computers to help people learn to read and write.

Conversion of the room into a literacy learning area is scheduled to start in early 1990 and be finished by early summer, officials said.

The United Way grant was to the Literacy Volunteers of America-Huntington Valley. That organization works with adults who want to learn to read and write. It is based at the Huntington Beach Central Library, 7111 Talbert Ave.

The use of computers helps teach illiterate adults how to read and write, said Linda Light, director of the library’s Adult Literacy Services. “It helps them work on phonics and spelling and writing and even math.”

Light said including computers in the literacy program makes it easier for people to ask for help.

“It takes a real act of courage to come to a (literacy) program like this and say, ‘Teach me to read and write,’ ” she said.

Light said men and women taking the course can honestly tell their colleagues that they are going to the library “to take computer instruction.” She said this avoids the embarrassment some adults feel in telling others that they are learning how to read and write.

Information about the literacy program is available by calling the Adult Literacy Services office at the central library, (714) 841-3773.