| We often see articles in newspapers or magazines | | | | preventing and correcting errors made by illiterate |
| about the shocking extent of poverty in America or | | | | workers, and (3) the reduction in sales of reading |
| some other English-speaking nation. But how often do | | | | materials, higher education courses, and more |
| the articles examine the cause of the poverty? I | | | | expensive and luxury items. |
| cannot remember ever seeing such an article. Many | | | | A study of the changes made in the method used to |
| persons of influence -- celebrities, educators, and | | | | teach reading and the results achieved by these |
| politicians -- bemoan the extent of poverty. Many of | | | | changes prove that there have not been any |
| them want to help. Some of them actually do help, | | | | statistically significant improvements in the last eighty |
| but the help is almost always something involving | | | | years or more. Most of the changes made have |
| providing money or physical items to temporarily | | | | come as a result of the 1983 "Nation At Risk" report |
| relieve the symptoms -- the pain and suffering | | | | stating that if a foreign nation had imposed upon us |
| brought on by poverty. It is almost never something | | | | our 1983 education system, we would have |
| which will enable those in poverty to permanently | | | | considered it an act of war. |
| escape their poverty. It is like the saying, "Give a | | | | Most American school children of normal intelligence |
| man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man | | | | require a minimum of two years to learn to read. Dr. |
| to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." | | | | Frank Laubach, who taught adults to read in over 313 |
| Using this analogy, in order to teach a man to fish (i.e. | | | | alphabetic languages (and even invented spelling |
| escape poverty through his own actions), you have | | | | systems for scores of language groups who had no |
| to understand what is causing him to be in poverty. | | | | written language) found that in 98% of the |
| Otherwise, any help you provide will merely fight the | | | | languages in which he taught, he could teach them to |
| symptoms of the problem rather than solving the | | | | read and write fluently in less than three months. In |
| problem. It is like giving someone aspirin to relieve the | | | | some of the simplest languages, such as one or more |
| pain of pneumonia rather than antibiotics to end the | | | | dialects of the Philippine language, he found that they |
| pneumonia. | | | | could learn to read in one hour! Dr. Laubach stated on |
| The most statistically accurate and thorough study of | | | | page 48 of his book, Forty Years With the Silent |
| English functional illiteracy ever commissioned by the | | | | Billion, "If we spelled English phonetically, American |
| U.S. government was a five-year, $14 million study | | | | children could be taught to read in a week." As far as |
| involving lengthy interviews of 26,049 U.S. adults. The | | | | grammar and syntax are concerned, English is neither |
| interviewees were statistically balanced for age, | | | | the easiest nor the most difficult. One week may be |
| gender, ethnicity, and location (urban, suburban, or | | | | somewhat optimistic, but the grammar and syntax of |
| rural in a dozen states and several prisons across the | | | | English is easier than many European languages, all of |
| U.S.) to represent the entire U.S. population. This | | | | whose speakers learn to read in less than three |
| study, titled Adult Literacy in America, proves that | | | | months. |
| 48.7% of U.S. adults (over 93 million of them) are | | | | There are more than 1.3 billion English-speaking people |
| functionally illiterate (i.e. they read and write so poorly | | | | around the world, more than speak any language |
| that they cannot hold an above-poverty-level-wage | | | | dialect other Mandarin Chinese. The vast majority of |
| job) and proves they are more than twice as likely | | | | Mandarin Chinese speakers live in China. English is used |
| to be in poverty because of functional illiteracy as for | | | | more than any other language to speak to someone |
| all other reasons combined. | | | | who does not understand the speaker's native |
| The U.S. Census Bureau reports a much higher | | | | dialect. It is estimated that 600 million of the |
| literacy rate, but if you see how the literacy rate | | | | English-speaking people worldwide (including over 93 |
| that they report was obtained, you will undoubtedly | | | | million in the U.S. alone) are functionally illiterate. |
| agree with Jonathan Kozol (who describes the | | | | People who are honest in evaluating the serious |
| literacy rate determination process in his shocking | | | | physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial |
| book Illiterate America) that the reported figure | | | | problems of illiterates and the extent of English |
| vastly overestimates the literacy rate -- and the | | | | functional illiteracy of English-speaking people will have |
| Adult Literacy in America report proves it. Although | | | | to admit that the many half-measures we have been |
| there is no evidence of deliberate falsification of the | | | | using for the last eighty years are only fighting the |
| literacy rate, it is in the short term best interest of | | | | symptoms of the problem, not solving the problem. |
| educators and politicians to believe the rosy reports | | | | If we had to endure the problems that functional |
| of our literacy rate. | | | | illiterates must constantly live with, we would consider |
| Believing that we are much more literate than we | | | | our problems a crisis. |
| actually are, however, alleviates any necessity of the | | | | Literacy Research Associates, Inc. and NuEnglish, Inc., |
| drastic action needed to solve the problem. Instead | | | | two non-profit educational corporations, have |
| we just continue to treat the symptoms of pain and | | | | researched and perfected a system that Dr. Laubach |
| suffering to the illiterates and the continued high cost | | | | (now deceased) would undoubtedly advocate to |
| to every U.S. adult. Functional illiteracy costs every | | | | solve our literacy problems -- the only proven solution |
| adult -- reader and non-reader alike -- an average of | | | | known to be available. It has been proven in over |
| $5186 each year for (1) government programs that | | | | 300 alphabetic languages, but never tried in English. |
| illiterates use, (2) for truancy, juvenile delinquency, | | | | Do you REALLY want to help end poverty in the U.S. |
| and crime directly related to illiteracy, and (3) the | | | | and other English-speaking nations? If so, please fight |
| higher cost of consumer goods as a result of | | | | to effect a cure for illiteracy, rather than fighting the |
| functional illiterates in the workplace. The higher cost | | | | symptoms of illiteracy -- the pain and suffering and |
| of consumer goods results from (1) higher costs for | | | | poverty that illiterates must constantly endure. |
| recruiting and training employees, (2) the cost of | | | | |