“A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books,” said renowned educational activist and reformer Horace Mann. The summer before my freshman year, I was tasked with tutoring underserved youth at a nearby community center. Though bright-eyed and enthusiastic, these fourth graders were struggling to read even first grade-level stories. As each trudged painstakingly to pronounce every syllable, blatant frustration pervaded their faces. Instinctively, I made every effort to assist them in their reading, often spoon-feeding the words with which they wrestled. However, as one student after another battled through these simple texts, my heart sank at the realization that just miles from my comfortable suburb, there were children, soon entering middle school, without the ability to adequately read.
One day children will become adults and become our future; children can become presidents, doctors, teachers, police and other things. All parents desire for their children to excel as well as to become successful adults. Unfortunately, some do not have similar opportunities. There are three major income classes: low, middle, and high, so I will be discussing how low socio-economic children are more likely to encounter difficulties when it comes to their education, especially in literacy. Not helping these low socio-economic children will create a repeating cycle of poor readers, therefore creating poor or low-income adults.
Literacy is an important part of life; whether in school or on the job, words are all around. Today, fourteen percent of the United States population does not know how to read (The U.S. Illiteracy Rate Hasn’t Changed In 10 Years). Though fourteen percent seems trivial, when put into a number it is equivalent to 5,460,000 people who cannot read at a functional level in the United States. For literacy rates to rise, our country needs to take a more active role in homes, communities, and in schools. To solve this problem, literacy must be defined, statistics need to be examined, issues which arise due to illiteracy must be recognized, diagnostics of reading problems need to be understood and acknowledged, and solutions should be brought to the
On an international scale, America’s overall adult literacy ranking is in a downward spiral. The United States is currently ranked at number forty-nine out of 158 different nations in the United Nations (Kozal 1). This ranking will keep going down if no action is taken. Luckily, on a smaller scale, there are programs in our towns and cities that benefit adults that are functionally illiterate. All federal and local literacy programs reached only a maximum of 4% of the illiterate population (Kozal 1). That 4% will not put a dent in this growing nationwide epidemic.
“A nation that does not read much does not know much. And a nation that does not know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box, and the voting booth. And those decisions ultimately affect the entire nation...the literate and illiterate.” This quote by Jim Trelease accurately describes the state of our society today. The ability to read is so vital to our past, present, and future. However, though we have raised our standards, demanded higher test scores, and increased the pressure on our educators, there is little to show for it. Jim Trelease shares the statistic in his book, The Read-Aloud Handbook, that despite our desperate efforts, there has only been a one-point improvement in reading scores between
Illiteracy in America
Illiteracy in America
Walking into a class room full of seniors, one might not suspect that some of the students can not read above a third grade reading level (Mcmaster). In fact one million teenagers from the ages of 12 and 17 do not have the reading ability of a third grader. Literacy among American people is important because it affects our economy greatly. Not only that but it also affects the lives of the American population.
In the world america ranks as number 22 in literacy(http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=us&v=39). According to (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literacy) literacy is the ability to read and write. While most of the people in america are literate they vary according to how literate they are. What is elementary to us may be surprisingly difficult to someone else. In America although the literacy rate is 99%(http://www.reference.com/motif/society/literacy-rate-in-america) 3,109,120 people in America or 1% of the population is unable to read and write. Texas itself has 3 out of 5 of the least literate cities in America! No wonder people think being from texas makes you stupid. (http://time.com/9549/the-5-least-literate-cities-in-america/). Out of 75 cities Corpus ranks number 74 in literacy. That means that we are next to last not second place. According to Wall Street Corpus is almost the most illiterate in America.
Chapter II
Review of the Literature
Introduction
It is a “reading world” we live in and students should be guaranteed every opportunity to succeed in this information driven society. Children today are overwhelmed with more reading material than ever before on billboard, television, the Internet and at school, causing reading to become a relevant and essential need in the life of every child (Lumpkin 1972). Being able to read has become the core of our information driven society. Yet, reading difficulties continue to plague the foundation of our education system creating a problem that only seems to be escalating.
Whether one is an inner city kid, or a child of urban poor families in the Philippines, or a workingman or woman seeking a new career path, to seek a higher form of literacy is to take the responsibility on how the newfound knowledge is utilized. Literacy is sometimes taken out of context and used in a self-destructive means, however more often than not literacy facilitates our hopes and aspirations for a better quality of life.
Reading skills are paramount for ongoing development and the lifelong learning experiences of all children. Based on that premise, all children from every background, culture, socio-economic status, and level of ability, need to be provided with extremely well structured, planned, organised, yet flexible pedagogy to set them up for their best chance at success. The classroom teacher needs to allocate ample time to know and understand the individual strengths, weaknesses, backgrounds and abilities of every child. Additionally, similar effort is required to know and gain the trust and support of each child’s family, so the family will work with the teacher to support and guide the child’s reading and literacy development. The child’s reading