The National Assessment of Adult Literacy that was published in December, 2005, found that only one in four college graduates scored high enough to be deemed “proficient” from a literacy standpoint, which is defined as “using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” I wonder how many of those 75% that were not proficient teach our children.
Literacy is defined as "an individual's ability to read, write, speak in English, compute, and solve problems necessary to function on the job, in the family, and in society."
There are three categories of literacy. Prose literacy is the ability to understand newspaper articles and brochures that come with new household appliances; document literacy is the ability to understand and use documents to perform tasks, such as reading a prescription label; and quantitative literacy is the reading and comprehension skills necessary to balance a checkbook, determine the interest on a loan in an advertisement, or the like.
Thirty million Americans are classified -- yes, classified [sue me for "classifying"] -- as "below basic," which means that they could perform only rudimentary literacy tasks. Understand the long paragraphs or pages of print they are signing for a hospital admission? No. Understand what the prescription label means? No. Read and understand the personnel manual at work? No.
International Literacy Day is September 8.
While reading is but one component of literacy, it is a start. Reading resources for parents and others can be found at, believe it or not, the U.S. Department of Education.
The Federal Reserve System has information on financial literacy for teachers and parents and for you.
You're reading this; that's a pretty neat thing. You are connected to the Internet; you know more than you think. You have skills -- really, you do.
Volunteer to tutor. Take the training course offered in your community to tutor reading and take on a student. Help out with GED education conducted by your local school system. It's an hour a week, maybe two.
Improve your small part of the world.
Amen!
Amen!
Amen!
-d
My wife has been wanting to do volunteer work, I'll have to tell her about this. Thanks!
Posted by: Vito at August 14, 2008 02:08 PMAs sad as it is that some college graduates don't meet those standards of literacy, sadder still are the standards themselves. It's like a standard for "artistic," set at the ability to get spray paint on part of a small piece of plywood. If someone can graduate from high school and be unable to thoughtfully access the literature of his/her mother tongue, and unable to write a cogent essay, I protest.
Posted by: Kyle at August 16, 2008 04:30 PM