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9 Family Connection presents Central Florida Reads: A Spotlight on Literacy

9 Family Connection presents Central Florida Reads: A Spotlight on Literacy, a half-hour education special that will air Wednesday at 8 p.m. on WFTV Channel 9.

The show features some of central Florida’s key reading and literacy leaders, who discuss the importance of teaching young children language and reading skills.

Channel 9's Greg Warmoth and Martie Salt host the show, which includes personal stories detailing early childhood education, reading strategies at the elementary level and adult literacy programs.

“We really should be beginning to read to our children the moment they’re born,” said Joyce Whidden, executive director of the Adult Literacy League, one of the organization’s featured in the Central Florida Reads special.

But Whidden and her team explain to Warmoth and Salt that it is never too late to learn how to read and benefit from improving your literacy.

“Learning to read as an adult, I would say, is the ultimate opening of all the doors and all the windows that most of us just take for granted,” Whidden told 9 Family Connection.

An estimated 20 percent of adults in the metropolitan Orlando area could use help improving their reading and writing, Whidden and others at the Adult Literacy League have found.

Representatives from the Heart of Florida United Way, Orange County Public Schools, the Early Learning Coalition of Orange County and Rolling Readers Space Coast also appear on the show. They offer advice on how to get help or help others when it comes to reading and improving language skills.

Central Florida Reads: A Spotlight on Literacy will air a second time on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on WFTV Channel 9.

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