Readin’ & Writin’ —Does Quality Matter if Millions of Adults Can’t Read To Their Kids
Uncovering the low literacy rates affecting adults and children
Literacy and Adult Learning
Many adults and children secretly sit in the shame and vulnerability of being unable to read or write. They just get by and hide their lack of education enough to get passed on to the next grade or get a job they can hope to survive with.
Life and education have changed since I studied adult learning in college classes, but discovering obstacles students, no matter what age, face still intrigues me.
However, nothing prepared me for what I encountered while teaching vocational classes and group facilitation. It seemed like the ever-growing, unspoken issue of literacy was buried beneath self-esteem and shame.
Recently, the subject has flared again. Now, with online communication, literacy is more than reading and writing. It is understanding, creating, and communicating digitally in a fast-paced world of information at the touch of a button.
That fast pace is leaving more behind in the area of literacy.
I was shocked to learn that 130 million adults cannot read simple stories to their children. Especially since reading to young children is known to help the child’s ability to read.
Reading to a child sparks imagination and helps them develop language skills. It gives them an early start in learning about the world around them.
That statistic alone sent me down a rabbit hole regarding the state of literacy in the U.S.
The dictionary definition of literacy is the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write. It means not only the ability to read and write but also having an education; being educated.
We are failing!
The average literacy level for adults is 7th to 8th grade levels. That’s 12 to 14 years old. Well-known books at this level are Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
While that seems a bit of a surprise, the goal of online writing is for ease of reading.
The following statistics brought an eye-opening awareness that I had no idea was on such an epidemic level.
Dyslexia and ADHD are commonly linked to difficulty with reading. Due to the concentration it takes to read, students get fatigued and lose focus easily.
The following statistics are shocking and perhaps the biggest elephant in the unspoken room I have seen.
· 48 million adults in the United States cannot read above a third-grade level. · 75% of incarcerated individuals did not complete high school and/or were classified as low-literate · Worldwide, almost 800 million people cannot read, most of whom are women. · 44% of American adults do not read even one book a year. · Approximately 40% of students nationwide cannot read at a basic level. · 60% of the behavioral problems in school occur during reading assignments- group or independently.
The Gift of My Non-Profit Work
One of my favorite jobs was teaching computer and basic office skills at a non-profit. We provided an eight-week program to adults referred through a workers’ compensation retraining program mixed with at-risk youth in their last hope of staying in school.
The adults came from different backgrounds, from grocery clerks and customer service to nurses and police officers. The kids ranged in age from fifteen to seventeen and had average reading levels of third to fifth grade.
Yet, their troubled home lives of poverty, single parents, addictions, and violence were a distraction far away from school work. Caring for siblings often in a parental role placed them in the emotional responsibilities of an adult rather than school-age students.
My greatest honor and measure of accomplishment was that in only eight weeks, those kids raised their reading levels to at least three grades and saw themselves with fresh eyes.
For most of the students, success in the program was the terms of probation. The rest was an alternative to completely dropping out of school. It would either give them skills to be employable or enough to pass the high school proficiency test for early dismissal from school.
One bright young man needed to pass the course, or the next stop was juvenile hall. He was adamant he didn’t know how to do math and insisted reading was boring. I told him daily he was a math whiz and I could prove it. We went back and forth on this for two weeks.
We bet.
If I could prove it to him, he would read a book for me. On Monday morning of the third week, he brought in his book, and I was armed with my proof. He had the most glorious smirk on his face, believing I would lose. We sat in the corner, and I asked him if he was ready.
He laughed and replied, “No, the question is, are you ready to be proved wrong?”
So I asked, “What are you in trouble for that they want to send you to juvenile hall?”
He replied, “That’s not your business. That has nothing to do with math.”
I said, “It has everything to do with math!” “If you are exchanging money, you use math. One dollar equals a hundred. Ten dollars equals one thousand. When you give change, you do subtraction. When you exchange a product for money, you are doing business for a profit, and that requires math.”
With that, I won the bet, and he read his book that night. (and a few more after that)
Another student was a sixteen-year-old girl who wanted to be a hairdresser. Her life was all about make-up, fashion, and looking like a model.
However, her reading and math scores were only at second-grade levels. I taught her division by doing scenarios about borrowing her sister’s outfits. The reading practice was fashion magazines.
I explained how math and reading would be a core component of running a business. She would need to calculate the cost of each service, subtract the products she would use, and add in her pay to buy clothes for herself instead of borrowing money from her sisters.
Her reading and math scores were at fifth and sixth-grade level at the end of the eight weeks.
Later, my work as a facilitator for court-ordered anger management/ domestic violence groups and drug court clients revealed the same type of shame and vulnerability — just getting by and hiding their lack of education.
Men in their fifties let their guard down and shared they didn’t know how to read. Creating a safe environment to talk about their feelings, allowed them to open up and realize they weren’t alone. Many had dropped out of school or didn’t graduate. Vocational and labor-intensive jobs allowed them to survive.
They struggled with the self-esteem issues created by troubled home lives, both growing up and currently. They hid the secret of not believing they were enough, just like the teens from my earlier vocational classroom job.
Why sharing our stories matters
Adding the human touch to our stories matters. It requires the writer to share intimate experiences that allow the reader to see into your heart. It invites the reader into a brief moment of your life and they can feel connected.
We all seek a connection, a sense of belonging, and someone who understands us because they have been there too. It gives us permission to see our lives from a different perspective. Opening our minds to build relationships builds trust and hope because we don’t feel alone.
Life in recovery of lost childhoods and your inner spirit is messy. Battling flying monkey thoughts to find motivation can be terrifying. (Flying monkeys are my visual for our negative self-talk)
How do we change this dilemma?
First, we acknowledge it! It’s hard to have a complete understanding if you haven’t been in their shoes, but I want you to read something.
“It deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”
Reading this, I imagine this might be how someone with dyslexia or ADHD might feel when reading the paragraph.
Δεν έχει σημασία με ποια σειρά είναι τα γράμματα σε μια λέξη, το μόνο σημαντικό πράγμα είναι ότι το πρώτο και το τελευταίο γράμμα βρίσκονται στη σωστή θέση. Τα υπόλοιπα μπορεί να είναι εντελώς χάλια και μπορείτε
But reading this one, I have to wonder if this is how students and adults feel when they can’t read.
It’s the same phrase written in Greek rather than jumbled letters. Only a select few can read it if they know the language.
The difference is not in the ability to read or write, it's the negative self-talk and stigma that they suffer through. It creates a disconnection and skewed perspective of who they are as a person.
Take a moment and think about a time you were standing in a group, and they were all speaking a foreign language. What ran through your mind? Having empathy and compassion for ourselves and others is the key to change.
I honestly don’t know how to fix it, but I do know I will continue to search, share, and write on the wings of hope to help someone. When asked why I do what I do, it always boils down to if I can teach the adults how to change their mindsets, it will trickle down to the children in their lives. It could just be the key to changing the generational cycles they are born into.
What I do know is I will continue to work on my mindset, improve my writing skills, and use my experiences in the hope of making a difference in someone's life through writing and coaching.
My current suggestions for ways to help yourself to help others
Write: Write from your heart and a viewpoint of empathy. Allow your readers to see a little of your life that they can connect with. Don’t give them all the answers. Let them find some of them. It can win their trust.
Read. Read other writers. Comment. Ask questions. Engage in conversations. If they’ve tapped into something, share it. If they’ve piqued your curiosity, ask. Making connections is important. Someone may have an answer you didn’t think about. You never know what another writer can spark within you.
Learn: Take classes. Search for posts geared toward writing advice not just monetary how-to’s. Be open to other genres that provide writing advice. I have a list of saved posts just for writing and editing advice. Trying some techniques has helped build my confidence. As you build that, the self-talk changes and it might help you to share with others that may be struggling.
Pay attention to your self-talk: I know this is my biggest obstacle. How harshly I judge myself when my writing isn’t as good as I think it is. When my thoughts attack my esteem, I have to remember it is no reflection of me as a person, it is the skill. A skill can be changed and improved.
The quality of a life boils down to how people feel. But Maya Angelou says it best:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Make your writing worthy enough they will forget what you said or did but never forget how you made them feel.
Jules — aka Miz Mindful is the top juggler of part time passions as Miz Mindful — author, artist, writer, Mindset Coach, Solopreneur, Canva Designer, Certified Moonologer — but hey you can call me jules!
**Note: As the universe does in my life, it popped in a message I was on the right track for me. I received an email about a recent documentary now available for streaming — The Truth About Reading — The Invisible Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight. I will be watching it very soon **