U.S. Illiteracy...in Pictures (For Easy Reading)

Visual stats on American illiteracy.  How can 92M Americans not read above a 5th grade level??? 

Washington state is only at 80-85% literacy.  (But thank you to the entire South for perpetually bringing up the rear.  And fyi, the majority of the South has charter schools so you can how well that is working for them.)


Comments

Jan said…
Very interesting, Melissa. LOTS of work to do. Wouldn't it be great if we were actually focusing more of our time on actually teaching people, rather than rearranging the management/ownership/incentive stuff around the outside of it all.
Anonymous said…
Here's a stat I'd be interested in: percentage of children reading at an earlier age over two to three generations. I think this range would cover two things, the demand for children to read earlier, generally by the time they leave kindergarten, and the changes in teaching methods since my generation learned in the 50s.

I ask this because my grand children were pressured. The eldest two were home schooled until grades 1 and 2. At home, they listened to story telling and readalouds since they came home from the hospital. My son and DIL were - that - committed to reading and language. In the car, at home, they devoured audio books. Because they entered public school only just beginning to read, they were seen as a hindrance to their language arts teachers. While other kids were learning earlier, they were doing more actual play (which I find one of the best introductions to PBL!), and learning letters and sounds. When the eldest child left 2nd grade with the warning they should be held back another year, they started reading on their own with the library's summer reading program. Everything lined up and instead of disliking forced reading, they came to it when they were developmentally ready. The started grade 3rd at a 5th grade or higher reading level. Just like that. They more than caught up with their peers. Why? Their parents did it differently, they just weren't down with Hooked on Phonics, which is a fine program, and went Waldorf style.

So I wonder how much disagreement exists within the reading sector on what is developmentally appropriate and if it is essential that all children read leaving KG. And have changes to teaching methods really reaped more readers overall or not?

Mr White
Jim said…
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Jan said…
Mr. White -- you are totally correct. While some kids learn to read just fine at 5 or 6 (or earlier), many kids are not "developmentally ready" to read until they are 8 or even 9 -- and there is nothing wrong with them. It is just the way their brains process phonemic stuff, and their readiness to learn to use symbols (written language being "symbolic" of spoken words in a fairly screwy phonics system). SOME kids who don't read early really do have reading or language problems that need to be remediated -- and for some, starting earlier is definitely better than waiting. But the system seems pretty indifferent to distinguishing between these two groups.

And you are correct that for late developers, when it finally falls into place, they learn to read "all at once." How many hours of wasted child life do we put kids like that through -- trying to make them spend years learning at 6 and 7 what they can learn in 5 or 6 weeks when they are 8?
Sahila said…
I agree with Mr White.... let go of the pressure and the children will read when they're ready...

My son did what his grandchildren did...

was supposedly "at risk" when he wasnt reading at the beginning of first grade (failed DIBELS)... offered remediation and "summer school", which I turned down...

two weeks before end of 1st grade, he just took off and by the end of the summer, was reading at 5th grade level (with comprehension) and now reads (if he was in school he'd be finishing 3rd grade) at 8th grade level....

Give them the exposure, give them the tools/resources/access to books, let them choose what to read, leave them alone ....

Kids in northern Europe dont start school until they're 7...

and developmentalists say kids - especially boys - are not ready, generally speaking - to read until about then...
Anonymous said…
92M Americans can not read above a 5th grade level

This is right up there with the district's comment that only 17% of the high school graduating class was college ready. Which is to say - it isn't really believable. The sky isn't falling.

-reader

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