Program for Easy-to-Read Network Meeting

Easy-to-Read Network Meeting
Oslo 9 August 2010

Venue: Litteraturhuset, Oslo

Download program (pdf)

Download application  (pdf) 

8.30 – 9.00
Morning coffee/tea and Introduction
Anne Marit Godal, Norway and Bror Tronbacke, Sweden

9.00 – 9.45
What does statistics tell us about reading ability? How poor are adult reading skills?
Change of Programme. We will announce a new lecturer later on.

9.45 – 10.30
Reading Power – a presentation of a new project inspiring next of kin and volunteers to read aloud to people with dementia and a little about new research.
AnnMarie Lindman, Centre for Easy-to-Read, Sweden

Meeting in Oslo

We are now finally planning for a network meeting. The meeting will be held in Oslo on Monday 9 August. It will be arranged by the Norwegian organization Books for everyone in cooperation with the Centre for Easy-to-Read in Stockholm.

The second meeting of E-T-R reading groups in Catalonia gathered 200 people

The Easy-to-Read meeting took place in the Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya the 29th of November 2008. It was organized by the Easy-to-Read Working Group and the Associació Lectura Fàcil (Easy-to-Read Association).

Easy-to-Read Network Conference 2009

This is a proposal concerning a conference gathering Easy-to-Read Network members from all countries. The Centre for Easy-to-Read in Stockholm is prepared to initiate and plan for a conference next autumn.

An association for Reading Representatives is being built up in Finland

A project aimed at building up an association with Reading Representatives started about 1 ½ years ago in Finland. Money was granted by a Culture Fund. The target group is Swedish speaking people with an intellectual disability. This group is not large – only about 2.000 persons.

There was not enough money to employ someone to work fulltime in this project. The leader of the project, Johanna von Rutenberg at the LL-center in Helsinki, contacted three women from different parts of the country. They are all three professional caregivers working with intellectually disabled people – and they are also reading enthusiasts.

Christina Grönroos in Nyland, Christina Grönholm in Åboland and Maria Pitkäkangas in Österbotten were each given 50 easy-to-read books to use in their project work.
Together with Johanna they went to Stockholm, Sweden, to attend a course for two days in January 2007. They also made a study visit to Kista outside Stockholm – to the local library there and to a daycentre for the intellectually disabled.
Back home in Finland they got more LL-education and inspiration from Johanna. They also surveyed actual reading activities at different daycentres and groupliving apartments for their targetgroup. The results showed that reading only exists if there is a devotee working at the unit. Reading activities depended completely on these devotees among the employees.

After being educated Maria and the two Christinas took their piles of books and travelled out into reality.
Two of them built up two small easy-to-read libraries – one at a daycentre in Helsinki and the other at the large institution Kårkulla vårdhem (nursing home) in Pargas, Åboland. People from different units in the respective areas can now come to these libraries to borrow books or they can reserve books and have them sent by post.
Maria donated all her books to an ordinary, local library in Närpes, Österbotten – but with some categorical demands. The library was required to include the easy-to-read books in the set of books and other materials delivered by the book van. The library must undertake to buy new easy-to-read books in the future and also the librarians were asked to arrange some sort of easy-to-read area with books, information, a sofa, a table etc.
In connection with the deliveries of the books to the libraries the three women also visited almost all daycentres and groupliving departments in their areas to give information to the employees about the reading project.
Johanna von Rutenberg is now going to apply for more money to enable the project to continue. People know a little more now. But there is still no established Easy-to-Read Activity for the intellectually disabled. Johanna would like money enough to employ someone fulltime. That is the only way to be able to fulfil a more systematic work.

Ann Marie Lindman
Centre for Easy-to-Read, Stockholm

Reading Representatives in Finland: "Reading is magic!"

- The feedback in Åboland has been very favorable, says Christina Grönholm about the project to build up an association with Reading Representatives. Christina works at Kårkulla nursing home in Pargas.

- Apart from Kårkulla, a nursing home quartering 90 people, there are 25 units in my area, daycentres and groupliving apartments, recounts Christina.
She is one of the three Reading Representatives working to establish the project in Åboland in the south of Finland. Christina phoned all the units and asked the employees to reflect on their reading habits at work.

My Opinion My Vote

Many people with learning disabilities don’t experience any political participation as electors and don’t exercise their right to vote. The Equal Opportunities Centre for Disabled Persons is participating in an EU funded project that aims to modify this situation.

Projects

European learning partnership
for easy-to-read newspapers

Swedish easy-to-read newspaper 8 SIDOR is since 2005 involved in an international partnership funded by the European Union. Seven partners from the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark have been involved in the project. At present four of them are in the process of creating a pan-European web-based newspaper. The first two years of the Socrates/Grundtvig 2 partnership have been devoted to exchanging ideas, making an inventory of the present status of easy-to-read language in Europe and creating effective working methods.

Learning partnership

A more active year!

The Easy-to-Read Network has now a site of its own. There were quite a lot of technical problems in the beginning but now everything seems to work. Here in Stockholm we hope that next year will be a more active one that this year has been.

Norwegian Easy-to-Read Centre collaborates with prison libraries

The Norwegian Easy-to-Read Centre, Leser søker bok has started a collaboration with two prison libraries recruiting Red Cross visitors as reading representatives.

"Reading promotion: Policies and experiences"

Stadtbuecherei Frankfurt am Main,

10th Oct 2007, 14:00h

Associació Lectura Fàcil presents its Easy-to-Read project at the Frankfurt International Book Fair.

ALF has the plesure to invite all members of the Easy-to-Read Network to join us in this presentation.

European learning partnership for easy-to-read newspapers

Swedish easy-to-read newspaper 8 SIDOR is since 2005 involved in an international partnership funded by the European Union.Seven partners from the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Norway,Sweden, Finland and Denmark have been involved in the project.

At present four of them are in the process of creating a pan-European web-based newspaper. The first two years of the Socrates/Grundtvig 2 partnership

have been devoted to exchanging ideas, making an inventory of the present status of easy-to-read language in Europe and creating effective working methods.

Text, reader and society - Adult reading from different perspectives

How to make an easy-to-read newspaper

The 8 SIDOR (8 PAGES) has now produced a material on how to make an easy-to-read newspaper.It is available from us. If you are interested, please contact:ann-marie.lindman[at]lattlast.se

This is an attempt to make a list of practical hints and suggestions for those involved in editing an easy-to-read newspaper or planning the publication of one. Hopefully it will encourage and facilitate the emergence of new easy-to-read newspapers by describing target groups, technical solutions, cost levels and editorial strategies.

Great care has been taken to ensure that low-cost as well as more expensive alternatives are described. "How to make an easy-to-read newspaper" is based on more than twenty years experience of publishing 8 SIDOR.

- I want to explain what is difficult!

- Already when I was studying at the University, and had to read and read again to be able to understand, the thought occurred to me: Why don’t they write in a more easy-to-read way, says Karine Nicolay.

Today, many years later, Karine Nicoaly works at the Belgian easy-to-read newspaper Wablieft. The paper is

written in Dutch which is one of the country’s two main languages. The French speaking population can read L’Essentiel, also easy-to-read news. Wablieft is funded by the by the Belgian government and gives Belgians the possibility to read news that everyone can understand.

- I wanted to extend myself, learn more from others and also develop our own work with easy-to-read news.

So Karine asked for, and also received money from the EU to begin a co-operation with other easy-to-read newspapers in Europe. The money comes from a EU project called Socrates/Grundtvig.
So far, editorial staff members from the different newspapers have met three times, once a year, since 2004. The newspapers participating in the project are: 8 SIDOR from Sweden, Klar Tale from Norway, LL-bladet and Selko Uutiset from Finland, Okee from the Netherlands and Overblik from Denmark. From England there is also representation from the Plain English Campaign.

During three very intensive days in April, they all met up in Stockholm, invited by the Swedish easy-to-read newspaper 8 SIDOR (8 PAGES). There are among other things, plans for a joint venture, an Easy-to-Read newspaper covering all European countries.

- To be able to explain what is difficult, that, is my aim, concludes Karine.

Swedish Center for Easy-to-Read comes to Romania

Between the 6th and 7th 2007 of April a small Swedish delegation visited Targu Mures in Transylvania, Romania. The purpose of the trip was to introduce the easy-to-read concept and hosting was the Oasis Foundation, who had also arranged a press conference, a two-day seminar and a short meeting with the Mayor of Targu Mures.

Is Easy-to-Read useful for reaching persons with dementia?

Communicating with persons suffering from dementia, reaching into their world, and enabling them to reach out of theirs, how can that be achieved? This is a question that a team of researchers is currently looking into in Stockholm.