The Illiteracy Problem in America It continues to be a big problem with the ranks swelling each year. Although safety nets are everywhere, illiteracy is still abundant. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in 1998, ten million children between seven and eleven years of age performed below the most basic level of reading achievement. Illiteracy is not limited to children, teenagers, adults, a particular socio-economic level, or a particular race. When George, now 68, was a child he moved frequently because his father ran a small circus. He never stayed in one place long enough to learn how to read. Finally, he quit school, never to return. Now after retirement, he has decided to learn how to read. He arrived at the library reading room to find the door was locked. The sign indicated that a key was available at the information desk, but George did not know what the sign said. So he sat down and waited several hours for someone to open the door. Meh Chin from China, the mother of a third grader, is interested in communicating better with her children, who have already become fluent in English at an early age. Literacy programs should be an integral component of every community. Not only do these programs serve adults and foreigners, but they also serve those that live with the problems of poverty throughout their daily lives. In 2000-2001, 15.7% of students missed 21 or more days during the school year. Students who miss many days of school because of illnesses beyond their control often fall behind in their studies. Many literacy programs help these students excel in what otherwise would have been a deficiency in their learning. Opportunities abound to stamp out illiteracy at the federal, state, and local level. Are these enough? For those in need, maybe not. Most everyone’s needs are unique. National Family Literacy Program helps those families nationwide with literacy problems. In our own state of Florida, Governor Jeb Bush has set up the Governor’s Mentoring Initiative Program which has helped over 9,000 adults and children improve their reading programs.
I previously have mentioned, in prior reflection essays, just how important literacy is for a person’s future. Notice how I didn’t say “student’s” future? Literacy fluency effects several aspects of life, not only academically speaking. Ultimately, the literacy level of a child can directly affect their future as an adult. The whole point of Torgesen’s article “Catch Them Before They Fall” is about preventing students with literacy deficits from slipping through the cracks without the best possible, research-based interventions.
British and Spanish colonization in North America has had a profound impact on the culture, history, and demographics of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. British colonialism created a scope for trading, fishing, lumber, and other exports to the Old World and also held a religious influence on the Eastern seaboard, while Spain laid the foundation for the modern day banking system and led to the evangelization of traditional native ceremonies. Both British and Spanish colonialism practically decimated the Native American population, an effect seen to this day.
Despite numerous literacy-promoting programs all over the state of Florida, literacy still remains a problem for this state. People just don’t seem to want to waste their precious free time staring at words on a piece of paper, but would rather stare at moving pictures on a screen. Obviously this is a problem, as Florida’s FCAT scores are less then perfect when compared to the scores of the rest of the nation. Something needs to be done to get Florida reading.
“Where Soldiers Come from” a film that follows a group of soldiers as they leave for Afghanistan and then return home and details the trails that they faced. This essay will focus on how the military changes Americas for the better. It helps to make a difference in several ways. First the military is helping those in lower economic standings to find long term stable work. Second providing people the means to help change their social economic standings and even providing jobs where there where none before. Finally also provides training relative to school and also financial help to attend school. The military is helping to change Americans for the better improving their lives.
Literacy, or the capability to comprehend, translate, utilize, make, process, assess, and speak information connected with fluctuating settings and displayed in differing organizations, assumes an essential part in molding a young's persons trajectory in life. The ability to read speaks to a key factor of scholarly, social, and financial success (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). These abilities likewise speak to a fundamental segment to having a satisfying life and turning into an effective worker and overall person (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1999). Interestingly, recent studies have demonstrated that low reading skills lead to critical hindrances in monetary and social achievement. As stated by the National Center for Education Statistics, adults with lower levels of reading skills and literacy have a lower average salary. Another study evaluated that 17 to 18 percent of adults with "below average" literacy aptitudes earned less than $300 a week, though just 3 to 6 percent of adults with "proficient" reading abilities earned less than $300 a week (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
Neuromyths consist of a brain-based, or neurological, concept that has been taken out of disproportion and fed to the masses as food for thought. Many neuromyths find their inception in small research labs or in a published article that is not well founded. While most neuromyths are harmless, some of them can be blown so out of proportion that marketing industries prey on the vulnerability of individuals because today’s society flourishes on being the best an individual can possibly be. Dr. Usha Goswami explains a common neuromyth susceptible to such scrutiny that finds its foundation in “enriched environments” (Goswami, 2004). This neuromyth states that by having an ‘enriched environment’ such as increased educational programs or language immersion it helps to enhance the brain’s capacity
In today’s business market leaders are face with diversity in there follower and who they do business with on a global scale. It is more and more obvious that products in a store are marked from a plethora of countries not just made in the country of origin from where you are from due to emerging markets. This interconnected production of products can be designed in one country and engineered in another as well as manufactured in several regions then sent to be assembled in yet another. Foreign trading and exporting is becoming the status-quo, to flourish in a competitive market, with rapid industrial growth around the world in developing countries. Opening up opportunities for growth as well as increasing the
Literacy is a catastrophic problem around the world. With the information age coming in at blazing speeds, literacy is needed among every one in the nation. To solve literacy’s problems must effectively the United States must go the roots of where illiteracy begins. When this starts to happen nation wide, all able will be able to have the ability to read. How else would a nation survive in a literate world with out being literate itself?
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go.” This quote by Dr. Seuss explains the importance of reading. Knowing how to read is very important to be successful in life. In 2009,a nationwide study by the National Center for Educational Statistics recorded that sixty-seven percent of 4th grade students, seventy-five percent of 8th grade students, and seventy-four percent of 12th grade students were not reading at a proficient level. This will cause many problems as the child progresses through life and later on to adulthood. According to the National assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), forty-three percent read at the lowest 2 literacy level ("Who Needs Phonics"). They will not be able to apply to jobs, stigmatized in society, and may result in their children being illiterate also. In order to decrease the alarming rate of seven million illiterate children and give them a chance to have a better life is by integrating a method to teach them how to read better.
Illiteracy in adults is not something that has just come back, but has existed for a long time now. Within the population of today’s people over the years, adults haven’t been given the best in their educational setting. Growing up a lot of children couldn’t attend school for having to help on the farms or even raising children. Most that we given the opportunity to attend had to drop out to help maintain the welfare of the family by working. In the U.S. we have had a hard time addressing this problem with illiteracy her for many years. Programs are starting to exist in relations to trying to help the rising rate of adult illiteracy, such as the NAL (National Adult Literacy). These type of programs offer single help to those living with illiteracy
Teenage Illiteracy has a major effect in many teenagers’ lives today. Literacy is a learned skill, and illiteracy is passed down from parents who many not are able to read nor write. In America two thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. As Americans we often don’t take the time to realize that schooling at a younger age through high school will improve a child’s opportunities and chances at life. Schooling in younger ages, middle school, and high school play a major part in a child’s life as an adult and how they function.
According to “The National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), it has been recently estimated that 14 percent of adults in the United States have a below basic level of prose literacy. Basically what that means is that adults with this level of prose literacy range from being nonliterate in English to only being able to locate easily identifiable information in short, commonplace prose text. For example, people with below basic prose literacy would be able to find out “what a patient is allowed to drink before a medical test”, but generally couldn’t say or find “in a pamphlet for prospective jurors, an explanation of how people were selected for the jury pool.” Shockingly enough, 55 percent of those in the lowest prose-literacy group had not finished high school.” (“The Silent Epidemic -The Health Effects of Illiteracy”) That is a really alarming number! Over half of the people that have the lowest level of literacy didn’t finish high school… wow! “Although statistical rates of functional literacy may vary from one study to another, it is still apparent that a high number of adults in this country are poor readers.” (“Literacy Education”) Illiteracy is becoming such a problem in the world that it is preventing many people from achieving success. This is a situation that needs to be solved, and can be! Possibly through general reading programs for adults and older children, literacy integration programs at work and in businesses, and early action by teaching children to read at an early age.
A problem that I believe is becoming a bigger issue now, than ever is the underdevelopment of childhood literacy. In the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test, sixty percent of fourth graders across the United States are not reading at grade level. Since 2013, the numbers of under developed reading skills in young children have only increased. In 2015, the same test came back but the number of students not meeting their benchmark was sixty-six percent, which is two-thirds of children set up for failure at such a young age.
According to Richard Vaca, author of Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum, “Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives.” But despite the importance of high levels of literacy in adult life, American literacy scores in schools remain low. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for fourth graders in 2009, the national average score was a 220 out of possible 500, no improvement over the average 2007 score. This across-the-board failure to teach students such a vital skill as literacy in the twenty-first century demonstrates a failure of the literacy curriculum itself, and the...
· The illiterate does not have the reading and writing skills to reinforce these skills in their children.