Mary Ressler

I hold a Master of Arts in History and Reading Specialist degrees. During the past several years I have been part of the Barbara Bush XPRIZE for adult literacy solutions and an English Language Arts teacher in the United States. My students make significant growth in reading due to my infusion of phonics and multi-sensory, kinesthetic initiatives.

Illiteracy Purposely Overturned

I told a principal I could fix illiteracy at his school and he just scratched his head. So, I left a note and tool on his desk that read, “I just fixed the locker upstairs because I found the tool you needed, and I can fix your reading deficiencies at this school.” I creatively convinced a principal to give me a job and that turned into a mission to solve world illiteracy. Today, I bring you my toolbox of how I fixed illiteracy for not only myself but others. Learn how illiteracy can be purposely overturned so that we can solidify infrastructures that manifest literacy stability.”

Purpose has to be the epi-center of world literacy endeavors in order for individuals and communities to find the strength and determination to become literate. Coupled with this vision, the lenses of how literacy acquisition evolves is essential to understanding that illiteracy can be overturned, even when there are less than optimal circumstances. My personal journey of literacy is one that comprehends what is needed to facilitate literacy attainment in individuals and communities alike. This stems from my own literacy deficiencies as a child and couples my contributions to literacy solutions as an adult. I’ve found answers to solving illiteracy from my research of the past decade. This research has included using extended phonics remediation, multi-sensory, kinesthetic instruction and universal devices; such as, songs, stories and technology that facilitated improving my own literacy deficiencies and those of students. Further research has begun to engage adult learners around the globe, as I was a part of the Barbara Bush XPRIZE and devised an APP and free platform for literacy attainment around the world. My research in my own classroom and that of XPRIZE were designed to meet the deficiencies of multi-sensory kinesthetic learners, but there are multitudes of others that need our lenses on their illiteracy needs. I have delineated and explained my ideas for bringing the world literacy so the powerless have voices.