By FRANK SOJAK
Nancy Higgins is helping her students turn the pages to a better life.
A volunteer tutor with the Cambria County Literacy Council, Higgins has been teaching English to two Vietnamese women in their 20s.
The two women are happy to be learning English.
“They’re doing well,” Higgins said. “They want to become United States citizens, that’s their dream. They want to speak like Americans.”
Higgins said both women are graduates of colleges in Vietnam and learned to speak a little English while attending high school in Vietnam.
Higgins has been teaching one of her students for two years and the other for eight months. She spends about three hours a week teaching each student individually.
“They’re very intelligent,” she said of her students.
“They also are dedicated and motivated. They do not like to miss a class.”
Higgins said that in addition to teaching the students at the Literacy Council’s classroom at the Cambria County Library, 248 Main St., Johnstown, she takes them on walks through the downtown to learn to read the various signage.
A former elementary school teacher, Higgins said she utilizes the same skills she used to teach children to read, write and speak English.
The Literacy Council makes learning to read for adults easy and rewarding because tutors get to teach students on an individual basis.
“That makes all the difference in the world,” she said.
Higgins said the library has been gracious in allowing the Literacy Council to make its home at the library.
Higgins recently was recognized as the tutor of the year by the Literacy Council. She was presented with the George F. Brown Award, which honors a tutor who has made an outstanding contribution during the past year.
For her efforts, Higgins, a Brownstown resident, is the Person of the Week.
Higgins also has taught adults how to read at a community outreach center in Cleveland, where she and her husband, George, lived before returning home to the Johns-town area. Her husband also tutored students at that center.
Anne Fattman, Literacy Council president and a tutor, said Higgins means much to the Literacy Council’s program and to Higgins’ students.
A strong bond has developed between Higgins and her students, she said.
Both Fattman and Kay Kusibab, Literacy Council treasurer and a tutor, said Higgins goes beyond teaching out of a book by taking students on field trips to groceries and other places to learn to read.
Just as the other tutors, Higgins is a volunteer because she likes to help people and believes that reading is important, Kusibab said.
Higgins and her husband have three children and three grandchildren.
