Dear Friends:
The Erickson Learning Foundation is dedicated to helping students who need financial assistance reach their full academic potential through tutoring. It is focused toward providing people with scholarships to aid them in becoming better citizens through improved education and self worth. The basic mission of this foundation is helping Michigan students reach for tomorrow.
Students of all ages, from five to eighty years old, have benefited from this financial aid program. Many of these students have a learning disorder and would not have learned to read, write, and do math commensurate with their intelligence had they not had tutoring remediation. Others are functionally illiterate and have become literate through the programs the scholarship funding has provided. Still others are emotionally impaired, cognitively impaired or are autistically impaired, and desperately need academic help. The availability of financial assistance makes this possible through our program.
Remember this important information:
Ø One-fifth of Americans are functionally illiterate.
Ø 13 to 15 percent of adults in Michigan have less than a 9th grade education.
Ø An estimated 675,939 Michigan residents either do not read at all or read below the fourth grade level.
Ø 2.2 million American illiterate adults are added to the population annually.
Ø 75 percent of unemployed adult have reading or writing difficulties.
Ø 80 percent of prison inmates are illiterate.
Ø Illiteracy costs business and taxpayers an estimated $20 billion annually.
Ø Over his or her lifetime, each functionally illiterate unemployable adult costs Michigan $469,000 in actual expenditures.
Please consider contributing to the Erickson Learning Foundation. Remember, all contributions to this foundation are tax deductible. Thank you for considering this request.
Caryn Edwards
SPECIAL CHILD
I know a very special child
whose world is upside down.
And often in his classroom
he wears a puzzled frown.
He’s criticized for tuning out,
accused of never trying.
He’s nagged and scolded, begged, cajoled;
most kids end up crying.
But often times he just gives up;
each task will mean defeat.
He sees a different symbol
and hears a different beat.
His NO is ON, for WAS its SAW,
and HOW surely must be WHO
and 6 plus 6 is 21, three 9’s are 72.
The problem’s labeled many things:
it matters not the name.
To please his parents, teachers, peers,
is the child’s secret aim.
Now that we know some ways to ho help,
let’s start today and then;
Through work and understanding love,
we’ll right his world again.
Author: Dee Shaffer, L.D. Teacher
F.A.Philadelphia