Why do millions of Americans struggle with reading and writing?
For the first time, a detailed portrait of America's least literate adults is emerging.
About 30 million people – 14 percent of the US population 16 and older – have trouble with basic reading and writing. Correlating factors that were explored in a new government report include poverty, ethnicity, native language background, and disabilities.
Of these 30 million people, 7 million are considered "nonliterate" in English because their ...
Full Story »
This is not a problem which is confined to America. It is world wide and exists in all the English speaking world and likely in the non English speaking world. Therefore it must have a world wide cause. One could hypothesize television, video games, a lack of discipline in the schools and so forth but I very much doubt if poverty, race or any of the other factors mentioned is the real cause. At the risk of sounding like an old fart, when I graduated from high school in the late 50's, we had at least 99% functional literacy and everyone read for entertainment regardless of social or other status. Reading was the great escape from the world and it was classic for kids in difficult situations to become fanatical readers. This of course gave them at least one tool to remove themselves from the difficult situation they found themselves in. Reading skill was a valuable tool for upward mobility.