DECATUR - Learning to read is the hardest work 20-year-old Kevin Venable has ever done.

First, he must overcome feelings of shame to keep his tutoring appointments at the Decatur Public Library. Then he spends an hour at a time reading aloud, methodically practicing the short vowel sounds and consonants he has learned so far.

On a recent Monday with Barbara Hannon, a retired high school speech and English teacher, Venable was plowing through words, phrases and sentences featuring words with a short "i" sound and "s" and "t" blends. He recognized some of the words on sight and sounded out the rest.

"I ain't tried so hard before in my life," Venable said. "It makes me tired."

That may be so, but he's even more tired of not being able to fill out a job application, drive a car or read a street sign and, most of all, he's tired of "feeling stupid."

That's why, after starting out in July by coming to Project READ a couple times a week, he quickly advanced to five reading sessions per week and this week added two hours of math on top of that.

His goal is to learn as much as he can before he's released next month from the Illinois Department of Corrections Adult Transition Center in Decatur and moves back to his hometown of Granite City to continue his education there.

Project READ has been able to help, thanks to a $100,000 federal Community Development Block Grant awarded in December by the Decatur City Council.

The money has allowed the literacy program to add two literacy resource managers to the one it had, plus a volunteer coordinator and part-time administrative assistant. The new literacy managers are Jessica Dyer and Pamela Black, the volunteer coordinator is Alissa Tynan and administrative assistant is Diana Blunk.

The additional staff has let far more people get the help they need with their reading, math and study skills.

Julie Pangrac, coordinator of Project READ, said a little more than 100 tutoring sessions are taking place each week, more than three times the number going on before the grant. About 135 volunteers and 110 clients are involved, compared to about 60 of each before.

"Our students are able to come three, four and five times a week instead of being limited to just once a week," she said. "Their progress increases when they meet more often."

Pangrac added that Project READ recently has shifted its focus from recruiting more volunteer tutors to making good matches between tutors and customers and managing them.

As a result, Pangrac said about 80 percent of those who complete the assessment process stick with the program until they achieve their goals.

Rocki Wilkerson, adult education coordinator for the Decatur School District, said she can get help a lot quicker for her General Educational Development and Certified Nurse Assistant students, and that by itself is a key factor in their success.

"When our students need help, they need it today, not a month later, or we may lose them," Wilkerson said.

Homeward Bound and Workforce Investment Solutions of Macon and DeWitt counties are among the other partners whose clients have been helped.

So far, however, Pangrac has not found new funding significant enough to take the place of the federal grant.

Without it, as of April 15, the program once again must rely almost solely on an annual $68,000 grant from the Illinois Secretary of State's Office that covers only Pangrac's salary and that of literacy resource specialist Vicki Burris, who was cut back to part time Oct. 1 because of rising costs.

Executive Director Ray Batman of Dove Inc., which oversees Homeward Bound, said an expanded Project READ has helped raise awareness of adult literacy as an important part of workforce development.

Referring to the work of the Decatur Area Education Coalition, he said he hopes the "tremendous amount of energy that has built up around the concept of educating the whole community" will lead to continued funding at the current level for Project READ.

"This is a proven way to deal with adult literacy that's reasonably inexpensive," Batman said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey from 2007, there were an estimated 2,736 people 25 or older in Macon County with less than a ninth-grade education, with 2,282 living in Decatur.

New volunteer tutors, many of whom were waiting for training before the federal grant came along, say they find the work fulfilling.

"They literally get to watch lives change in front of their very eyes," Pangrac said.

Ed Twohill, who tutors Venable on Tuesdays, and Jennie Houk, who tutors him on Wednesdays, said it's gratifying to witness his progress. Twohill, who now works as an office assistant, said it's helping him sort out whether he himself would like to go back to school.

Houk, contractor service manager for Archer Daniels Midland Co., said she's proud of Venable and believes he has a lot of potential.

Hannon added that he's also gotten more confident. "You can see it in the way he looks you in the eye when asking questions," she said.

Venable said he's done blaming his drug-addicted mother for him getting kicked out of school in junior high and finished with the drug use that got him sent to prison.

Now he'd like to go back to laying concrete, provide for the 2-year-old daughter he hasn't seen for 18 months, get his GED and eventually take over his father's business managing apartments and repairing boat motors.

"At first, I really didn't want nobody to know I couldn't read," Venable said. "Learning how is making me feel pretty good."

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