For a good cause

Bryce Alderton

There are parents who would like nothing better than to read bedtime

stories to their children at night.

But oftentimes they can’t.

That’s where Bob Moore comes in.

He’s a volunteer at the Oak View Family Literacy Program where he

teaches Spanish-speaking adults in the Oak View neighborhood how to read,

write and speak English.

“I do it for the self-satisfaction, as a payback to the community,”

said Moore who was wearing a T-shirt that read Cabo San Lucas across the

front. It is a place he enjoys traveling to.

“It’s an opportunity to use the Spanish that I know,” he said

He volunteers for two hours every Tuesday at the Oak View Branch

Library.

Moore took classes in Spanish before he started volunteering two years

ago, because he and wife Jeanne, who also tutors in the literacy program,

frequently travel to Mexico and Central America.

They recently returned from a three-week trip to the Panama Canal and

had stops in Costa Rica and Colombia.

“You get so few opportunities to use it and I’ve found it keeps me

young,” Moore said.

Even though he is not fluent, knowing some Spanish has helped Moore

teach his students.

“It’s faster and you’re able to tell them what words mean,” Moore

said.

But most of the 50 teachers in the program don’t speak Spanish at all,

he said.

For the past six months Moore has been teaching three women who range

in age from 20 to 28, who were all born in Mexico and know no English.

He will work with them for as long as they desire to learn.

Most of the students in the program are adult women that want to learn

English to help their children with their homework, Moore said. They

often bring their children to the classes because they can’t afford to

pay for a baby sitter.

“When I first began tutoring I was nervous, but I soon learned to

develop lesson plans based on the needs of the students,” Moore said.

“You have to be patient and work with them.”

Going back and forth between Spanish and English works best for Moore.

He likes to write on the blackboard because he says, “Visual is a better

teacher.”

A retired businessman, Moore has no formal teaching background, but

learns as he goes along.

He plans to have them write a letter to their best friend in English.

He encourages students to take books home to read to their children in

both Spanish and English and spends 20 minutes each session using the

dictionary and having them read words in Spanish and/or English. He also

has them tell him what the word means.

“They take care of each other so well and I admire them because they

are hard-working, honest and desire to have a better life,” Moore said.

“They are wonderful parents that love their kids to death and want these

kids to be better than they are.”

* BRYCE ALDERTON is the news assistant. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at bryce.alderton@latimes.com