What Does Literacy Mean to You?
March 5, 2008 · Written by Melissa Donovan
According to the United Nations, in 1997, 20% of the world’s population was illiterate.
That is a staggering number. Since there were 5,840,324,240 people on the planet back in 1997, that means about 1,168,064,848 couldn’t read. That’s over a billion people — a staggering number.
Difficult to Grasp
Illiteracy is hard for me to comprehend. I learned to read before I was four years old, and I cannot remember learning how to read or ever being unable to read. My perception is that reading is something I’ve always done, something I’ve always been able to do. Not having that ability is unimaginable.
Yet where I live, in the United States, 21% to 23% of Americans are illiterate. While some studies claim that the literacy rate in America is actually at 99%, the standards used to define what it means to be literate are varied, and sometimes questionable.
Illiteracy Defined
There is a difference between having memorized a couple of thousand words and being able to actually read and comprehend written text. Does a fifth grade education render an individual literate? Or does literacy imply that a person can read, assimilate, and understand written language? There are some very different definitions of literacy, and all of them used in various studies.
The study that found 21% to 23% of Americans illiterate defined illiterate as:
- not able to locate information in text
- inability to make low-level inferences using printed materials
- unable to integrate easily identifiable pieces of information
Meanwhile, the study that claimed America is 99% literate based literacy on school grade level completed (fifth grade makes you literate) and collected data via — get this — written surveys. Based on that, I have to go with the former study and definition of literacy as being far more legitimate.
The Sad Truth About Illiteracy and Its Impact
I’ve had so many wonderful adventures and gained so much knowledge through books and reading that life without the written word is incomprehensible to me. Yet they are out there, folks who maybe know a handful of words that they’ve memorized — signs and words often repeated on commercials, probably big company names like McDonald’s, Kinko’s, and Starbucks. But they cannot sit down and read a novel, a newspaper, a textbook. They cannot use e-mail and probably have very little use for the Internet. Text messaging would be impossible. Of course, the people who cannot use these technologies probably cannot afford to own or even access them.
Consider the following:
- 60% of prison inmates are illiterate
- 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems
- Illiteracy limits work that one is eligible for, and therefore has a profound and negative impact on earnings potential
- 40 to 44 million of the 191 million U.S. adults (21 to 23 percent of them) in the least literate group earned a yearly average of $2105
- 75% of unemployed adults have reading or writing difficulties
- 13% of all seventeen-year-olds are functionally illiterate. Among minority youth, the figure is 44%
I have a lot of questions about illiteracy, and not a lot of answers. For example, why is the illiteracy rate in the U.S., which is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, so high? With today’s technology, why can’t everyone read? There are libraries, schools, programs, non-profit organizations, and it’s unbelievable that there are still so many who cannot read. Finally, what can we do, as writers, to help fight illiteracy?
Resources:
LINK - Lower Illiteracy Now Kids
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The statistics you cite are incredible. I wonder whether people have thought about spinning the problem in this way”
“Fighting illeteracy is fighting crime & poverty!”
If 60% of prison inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems, this is not such a long shot. Perhaps we could get Homeland Security money to increase literacy in the USA!
Namaste,
A. Caleb Hartley
Illiteracy is one of those topics that I find appalling and incomprehensible. I mean, given the resources. I completely understand that a hunter-gatherer in deepest Africa isn’t exactly curling up with the latest best-seller. But for the rest of us? HOW is this possible. Doesn’t pretty much every one go to school? Not everyone is going to turn into a Reader, of course, but unless you have a learning disability of some kind, how can people not grasp the basics?
I can actually remember the moment that reading made sense to me–that the idea of shapes on the page matched the letters I’d been singing with Mom and that you could put them together to make words. I actually remember the realization that all I needed to do was to learn the words, and I’d be able to read anything. (The family joke is that I’ve been trying ever since.) I look at friends who haven’t bothered to pick up a book in months if not years with great pity in my heart. They’re wonderful people, and all, but … they have no idea what they’re missing.
I can’t help but wonder how many of those illiterate people would really rather have the luxury of not picking up a book because they’re too busy rather than because they CAN’T.
@A. Caleb, You’re right. There are many ways to fight poverty and crime, but this is one that goes unmentioned.
@Deb, I too find it incomprehensible. I can’t imagine not being able to read! And it’s hard for me to relate when people say they don’t like reading. Also, the problem of illiteracy is surely a combination of factors. Unwillingness to learn is certainly one of them, but there is also lack of schooling or poor teaching, and even with learning disabilities, kids should still learn how to read. I believe that educators know of ways to get around such disabilities.