Cop taking a bite out of illiteracy

A few spare hours each week, coupled with a kind word or two of encouragement, can go a long way.

Kristin Atwell, who works major crimes as a Hartford police investigator, hopes a few hours of reading and writing with a local lady will be enough for her to learn how to read. Atwell has spent hours of her off time working toward starting a Wiregrass reading initiative as part of an effort to improve the area’s literacy rate.

Atwell and six other area women hope to use their adult literacy certification to fight illiteracy rate in the Wiregrass. Atwell heads the faith-based program, which is in its beginning stages.

Along with searching for a formal program name, Atwell is also trying to get the word out to find more students eager to learn how to read.

“It’s just something the Lord has laid on my heart,” Atwell said. “This is not about getting money. It’s letting people know somebody cares.”

Atwell and the other tutors received their training through the Alabama Baptist Association. It’s an opportunity for Atwell to help someone fulfill a basic need – how to read. State statistics show evidence of a need for literacy help throughout the Wiregrass, which has a regional 16 percent illiteracy rate, according to the National Center for Education Statistics Web site.

The Need

Atwell initially discovered a need for a literacy program while working in the Geneva County pre-trial diversion program. As part of the pre-trial diversion program, people were required to complete their GED. She said several people repeatedly failed the requirements for their GED, some as many as five times.

“They couldn’t get their GED because they couldn’t read,” Atwell said. “You know there is adult iliteracy throughout the nation, but it surprised me how many actually could not read.”

She left the Geneva County District Attorney’s Office and started as an investigator with the Hartford Police Department in January 2009. But her career in investigations started in 2002 with a position at the Ozark Police Department where she worked for six years before taking the job at the Geneva County District Attorney’s Office.

“I missed law enforcement. I love the investigations part of it,” Atwell said. “It’s just what I love to do it. It’s always different, you never know what you’re going to walk into that day.”

Several factors led her back to investigative work, including the interaction with people in the community.
Hartford Police Chief Ben Berry, who has spent more than a decade working in the Wiregrass, said such a reading and writing program was much needed in the community.

“It enables her to build relationships with people in the community, which goes along with building the police department’s relationship in the community,” Berry said.

She hopes people with the desire to improve themselves will not be afraid to come out and get help.

“People won’t come forward to ask for help,” Atwell said. “It takes something to happen for them to come forward. The biggest thing is I want people to know it’s here, and that it’s confidential.”

Each session with a reading tutor is free of charge. The instructor only asks the student to help purchase their workbook. The students also use the Bible during reading exercises.

“It’s a great outreach, and I get to pray for them,” she said.

Of the seven certified tutors in the program, two have students, including Atwell and Linda Hyde. The program does not have an office, but both Atwell and Hyde have found churches and community centers to help their students.

Hyde has worked with a Wiregrass man who came to her without much problem reading, but wanted to improve his reading vocabulary and reading comprehension.

“I was looking for another ministry that I could do since I do have some extra time,” said Hyde, a retired school teacher. “It’s important what we do with our time.”

Jan Morris, who taught the adult literacy certification earlier this year in the Wiregrass, said she hopes such literacy programs will help curtail an often unrealized problem across the state and country.

“People don’t realize that we’re rubbing elbows with people who can’t read and write. They have learned to compensate,” said Morris, who serves as the director of a learning and life center in Rockford. “Adults are very embarrassed. They don’t want you to know they can’t read and can’t write.”

“It’s just a vicious cycle. If you can’t read and write you’re not going to move somewhere else where you are more threatened. We try to get these folks into a reading class, and we try to be conscious of not embarrassing them.”