SPOTLIGHT LITERACY COUNCIL OF BENTON COUNTY

Literacy changes lives for better

Sharon Nisen became an active, tutoring volunteer for the Literacy Council of Benton County to honor her sister’s wish that she give back to young adult students.
Sharon Nisen became an active, tutoring volunteer for the Literacy Council of Benton County to honor her sister’s wish that she give back to young adult students.

Four years ago, Sharon Nisen was sitting at a table during Scrabble Wars.

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NWA Democrat-Gazette

Sharon Nisen learned of the literacy council through Scrabble Wars. Teams are divided into traditional, the rule-followers and dubious who can buy letters, use their phones and generally cheat.

She was enjoying the evening -- having played an energetic round of the board game, perused the silent auction and had a nice dinner. But during the slideshow that explained the need for the Literacy Council of Benton County, Nisen was shocked to learn that 45,000 adults in Northwest Arkansas don't know how to read.

9th Annual Scrabble Wars

What: A casual evening event, replete with bidding on mystery boxes, author-signed books, competitive rounds of group Scrabble, dinner and drinks.

When: Saturday, Doubletree Suites in Bentonville

Cost: $50/person, $500/table

Information: goliteracy.org or (479)273-3486

"I was astounded when I read that [that many] adults living and working in Benton County are considered functionally illiterate," Nisen says. "That blew my mind." New to Northwest Arkansas at the time, she thought, "It couldn't possibly be. Not in Benton County. Not in the area where Walmart has their world headquarters. It can't be."

She pointed out to her husband that 45,000 was the number of people who lived in her hometown back in Pennsylvania, quite a mass of people to be missing a skill so crucial to daily life. Thinking she must have misunderstood, she then emailed Vicki Ronald, executive director of the organization, hoping it was a typo. It wasn't.

Nisen couldn't fathom that many people falling through the cracks because she grew up in a family which prioritized knowledge over material things. Her parents were always quick to remind her that a good education was far more valuable than a nice house or fancy car.

Those family values drove Nisen into business, where she spent four decades working for major companies and led her sister into a career as a teaching doctor. Shortly before that sister died, she encouraged Nisen to become a dedicated volunteer.

"[It was] the one thing my sister made me promise, because she taught students," Nisen says. "She said, 'You need to pay it forward. You need to help others who are less fortunate and haven't been given the opportunity to get an education like we have. You need to help.'"

Scrabble Wars was only a few weeks later, and Nisen took it as the perfect chance to honor her sister's legacy. She joined the board of directors that organizes the event, and she began tutoring adults learning to read (and for some, speak) English.

Her business connections helped Nisen get started on securing enviable silent auction items, and by 2014, she was in charge of organizing the auction altogether.

"It was a matter of motivating [volunteers] and reaching out to businesses, personalizing it to them by telling them what it is we'd like to have," she says. It led to donations of high-end items and products that aren't sold locally.

Most importantly, those lunch meetings and drop-in visits to potential donors included conversations about how the inability to read impacts the community. Nisen always points out some of the very things that startled her: that many adults can't participate in parent-teacher conferences, and the children can't get help with homework because of that illiteracy.

On the teaching side of it, being a literacy council tutor opened Nisen's eyes to student circumstances and their good character, as well as their vulnerability.

"They're the most lovely people you'd meet," she says. "They're hardworking, family-oriented. personable individuals.

"We're here to help anybody who wants to better themselves and make a better life for their family. With literacy, [they] stand a chance of getting a better job or improving in the job where they're at."

When a new student begins tutoring, Nisen says, they are timid and sometimes act ashamed when they can't understand. Not knowing how to answer causes many of the students to keep their heads down and avoid eye contact. Witnessing that level of uncertainty keeps Nisen coming back to help.

Outside of the council doors, not knowing how to read means dozen of inconveniences most people don't think about -- like ordering the same thing at a restaurant every time just because you're unsure of what everything else is.

That's why Nisen likes to conduct some of her lessons outside the office and instead meets her students at grocery stores and other common locations where reading could help them.

At Walmart, Nisen makes a list of foods to buy and her students have to complete a series of tasks to get them, including speaking to the greeter, finding an employee to get an item off the top shelf and reading shelf labels.

"It was things like that, things they wouldn't have done before," she says. "If it wasn't at eye level, they wouldn't buy it. If it wasn't something they hadn't bought before, they wouldn't try it."

Just learning how to communicate with others gave them greater freedom to live the lives they've envisioned.

But the best part of coaching a person from their first "ABCs" to reading and functioning in a new language is seeing the transformation into a person filled with confidence.

"The light came on in their eyes, the pride [was there]," Nisen says. "Now I see them and they're looking up, they're chatting and happy and responsive. They're being acknowledged as adults. That part is so incredibly rewarding."

NAN Profiles on 01/17/2016

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