Christian Literacy Associates (CLA), and its model program Allegheny County Literacy Council, Inc., was founded in Pittsburgh, PA in 1975 by William E. Kofmehl, Jr., Ph.D. and his wife Linda. Since 1975, CLA has trained over 5,300 local volunteers to be tutors using our basic reading textbooks. More than 20,000 people in the Pittsburgh area have received counseling, evaluation, or tutoring through this organization, including over 2,000 children who attended Summer Reading Camps. The materials and teaching techniques developed by CLA have been taken to over 50 countries. Missionaries and other literacy groups have come for training and assistance in creating 20 foreign language basic reading primers. Over 70,000 people in other countries have been taught to read in English or their native tongue using CLA materials. In Malawi, Central Africa, 10,000 adults, mostly women, were taught to read in the first program year. A five-year project sponsored by World Vision taught 50,000 students to read in Haiti. An interactive computer program version of The Christian Literacy Series has been developed by Project Light, in cooperation with Christian Literacy Associates. This software is distributed and managed solely by Project Light and may be obtained through their ministry.
All of our materials and techniques are professionally designed for use by non-professionals; anyone who can read well and has the patience and desire to help someone else can use our materials to teach a child or an adult how to read. Because the materials are based on an easy to use sample lesson format, volunteers can effectively be trained as tutors during a single four-hour workshop. This allows for a much broader volunteer base and ease of replication. The Christian Literacy Series, which is used for all of our programs, was authored by our Founder and President, William E. Kofmehl, Jr., Ph.D.
Dr. Kofmehl received his doctorate in education from The University of Pittsburgh in 1973 and continued with post-doctoral work at the University of Oklahoma with the Wycliffe Bible Translators, the world’s foremost linguistic experts. Shortly thereafter, he completed The Christian Literacy Series: The Light Is Coming which is our Bible-content basic reading textbook. The Christian Literacy Series allows a trained tutor to teach almost any adult or child how to read. The text’s instruction can begin with a student who has never seen a letter of the alphabet. It progresses to a reading level that would be considered functional for adults, equivalent to about a 6th grade reading level.
Christian Literacy Associates is committed to reaching the functionally illiterate adults and children throughout the world by helping them develop the reading skills necessary to operate in our complex technological society. CLA also wishes to expose the individual student to the message contained in the Holy Scriptures through the example and witness of a Christian tutor, as well as through CLA’s basic Bible-content reading materials and supplements.