when Larry goes out to eat with his
friends he usually orders last most of
the time he gets the same thing as
someone else in his group when larry
goes to the grocery store he often asks
a fellow shopper to read part of some
food packaging to him saying I’m sorry I
left my glasses at home this morning do
you mind and when Larry lost his
manufacturing job he went to the
Jobcentre for help filling out
applications citing his poor internet
connection at home the truth is Larry
hides an important part of his life from
almost everyone in it Larry is
illiterate there are more than 36
million American adults just like Larry
who read write and do math at or below a
third-grade level that’s greater than
the population of every individual state
except California and equal to roughly
10% of the u.s. population when we raise
the bar to fifth grade proficiency that
figure rises as well to 20% of the US
population this is a national crisis
illiteracy is a largely invisible issue
a dark undercurrent to our society that
affects nearly everything from crime to
poverty to health and more one reason
for this invisibility is that low
literate adults often go to great
lengths to hide it because they are
embarrassed or ashamed human beings are
creative and resilient and we often find
ways to work around our problems without
actually solving them another reason
illiteracy is invisible is because high
school graduation rates don’t tell us
the whole story
a person can graduate while remaining
low literate and a person can drop out
while perfectly competent everyone has a
different school story everyone has a
different relationship to literacy I was
lucky
when I was a kid learning came easily to
me I did well in school and I took it
for granted
I even had my friends quiz me from the
spelling bee booklets at sleepovers for
many years for fun my board friends
but it all paid off this was me when I
won the district spelling bee in seventh
grade for the second year in a row look
how happy I am until I saw that photo in
the newspaper I had no idea my face
could look like that I think every
teacher I ever had gave me a copy of
that in school the next week you don’t
need to be a Spelling Bee champion to
have literacy skills that you take for
granted though chances are if you’re a
college graduate you are surrounded in
your personal life by other college
graduates it may be hard to visualize
the true scope of the problem of adult
illiteracy because it exists in pockets
because it is invisible and because we
tend to surround ourselves with people
of similar education levels to our own I
work at an adult literacy center here in
Dayton and one common incorrect
assumption that I have run into is that
adults who don’t or can’t read well
chose that path for themselves
that they were too lazy or too apathetic
to do well in school the first time
around this is simply not true for one
everyone has different reasons for being
at the levels they are and for another
adult learners are some of the most
motivated hard-working people you could
ever meet a few years ago 72 year old
twin sisters Mary and Martha came to the
Literacy Center because they had a goal
they wanted to read their mail take just
a second and think about how much you
take for granted your ability to read
the mail that comes to you think of the
piles of junk mail the credit card
applications the fliers and forms and
advertisements that you toss aside
without a second thought
Mary and Martha couldn’t do that they
had grown up in a sharecropping family
in Georgia and were only allowed to go
to school and days that it rained
because it was only then that they
weren’t needed in the fields so Mary and
Martha started from the ground up with
basic letter recognition at age 72 a few
months later they walked in through the
front doors smiling from ear-to-ear and
waving a piece of paper the sisters had
just been told that they wouldn’t get
their regular meals on wheels delivery
over the Labor Day weekend
due to the holiday schedule they didn’t
care about the food all the sisters
cared about was that they could read
that notice they were thrilled they were
proud they felt accomplished and they
were the furthest thing from ashamed
when was the last time you were that
excited about being able to read
something for Mary and Martha and for
all of us the ability to read is an
absolute game changer being able to read
and write actually changes the way we
think literacy expert Walter J Young
describes the ways in which writing
restructures human consciousness writing
is detached from the writer
unlike speech which is immediately
attached to the speaker by learning how
to read the written word we learn how to
separate ideas in time and we learned
that it is possible for ideas to endure
beyond the moment that their first
thought of case in point I didn’t need
to meet mr. Ong to learn what he thought
I could read his book instead and this
changes how we think many complex mental
processes are involved when we read as
babies we first experience language as
sounds that carry meaning and wood we
learn how to read and write we learn
that those sounds can have physical
representation as symbols on a page
reading relies on reversing this order
on turning symbols back into sounds back
into meaning the two main cognitive
building blocks involved with reading
are comprehension and decoding
comprehension comes first that’s our
ability to understand the meaning behind
the words and this meaning is always
made up of many parts definition tone
context relevance formality and many
more a more subtle aspect of
comprehension is the ability to infer to
read between the lines and hear what
isn’t said decoding comes next
decoding is our ability to process
language by recognizing its component
parts this is where breaking words down
sounding them out and noticing patterns
and spelling and meaning come into play
becoming a better reader really means
developing these decoding skills words
and sentences have endless combinations
once we realize that we are just
rearranging the same elements over and
over and over again for people who don’t
acquire this understanding earlier in
life everything is harder because what’s
really missing is that ability to
transfer knowledge from one context to
another when you have literacy skills
you probably have no clue how much you
read every day when something is
familiar to you it registers faster so
the more you see certain signs signals
and messages the more they sink into the
background so your brain can focus on
aberrations from those norms instead of
having to figure out consciously while
going 60 miles an hour down the highway
that that sign over there says no edge
lines you can focus on your car’s
position on the road keeping yourself
and everyone around you safer literacy
is like this in all aspects of life it
becomes an automatic process so we can
focus on what’s really important keeping
up with the news applying for jobs
taking medicines properly handling money
responsibly and of course staying
connected with our friends families and
communities when any one of us is less
able to do any of these things it
threatens everyone’s well-being and our
society stability often in ways you
wouldn’t think of for example children
of low literate parents have a 72%
chance of being at the lowest literacy
levels themselves breaking this cycle is
essential literacy is essential because
literacy is the tool that allows us to
take everything else for granted
literacy enables us to participate in
all of life the good news is that the
flip side of the cycle is true as well
literacy is a value that sticks with
people I grew up in an Air Force family
and when we got stationed in Dayton it
was just a couple weeks later that my
parents took us to the downtown library
branch to get our library cards and all
the chaos of moving books and stories
were a form of stability comfort and
connection
and that has always remained with me and
last month in the beautiful new building
at that same location I married the love
of my life in that library
more importantly Martha one of the two
sisters I told you about earlier
continues to come to the Literacy Center
her sister has passed away but Martha
comes every week and still works with
her original tutor four years ago
Martha couldn’t read her mail today
Martha is writing her life story chapter
by chapter our words and our ideas have
the power to outlive us when we read we
enter into conversations we didn’t even
know were happening when we write we
create something for the future for
people we’ve never met and we’ll never
meet an act of hope literacy is
connection across time and across place
literacy honors human dignity and gives
us hope for a better world one that we
can create together chapter by chapter
friends he usually orders last most of
the time he gets the same thing as
someone else in his group when larry
goes to the grocery store he often asks
a fellow shopper to read part of some
food packaging to him saying I’m sorry I
left my glasses at home this morning do
you mind and when Larry lost his
manufacturing job he went to the
Jobcentre for help filling out
applications citing his poor internet
connection at home the truth is Larry
hides an important part of his life from
almost everyone in it Larry is
illiterate there are more than 36
million American adults just like Larry
who read write and do math at or below a
third-grade level that’s greater than
the population of every individual state
except California and equal to roughly
10% of the u.s. population when we raise
the bar to fifth grade proficiency that
figure rises as well to 20% of the US
population this is a national crisis
illiteracy is a largely invisible issue
a dark undercurrent to our society that
affects nearly everything from crime to
poverty to health and more one reason
for this invisibility is that low
literate adults often go to great
lengths to hide it because they are
embarrassed or ashamed human beings are
creative and resilient and we often find
ways to work around our problems without
actually solving them another reason
illiteracy is invisible is because high
school graduation rates don’t tell us
the whole story
a person can graduate while remaining
low literate and a person can drop out
while perfectly competent everyone has a
different school story everyone has a
different relationship to literacy I was
lucky
when I was a kid learning came easily to
me I did well in school and I took it
for granted
I even had my friends quiz me from the
spelling bee booklets at sleepovers for
many years for fun my board friends
but it all paid off this was me when I
won the district spelling bee in seventh
grade for the second year in a row look
how happy I am until I saw that photo in
the newspaper I had no idea my face
could look like that I think every
teacher I ever had gave me a copy of
that in school the next week you don’t
need to be a Spelling Bee champion to
have literacy skills that you take for
granted though chances are if you’re a
college graduate you are surrounded in
your personal life by other college
graduates it may be hard to visualize
the true scope of the problem of adult
illiteracy because it exists in pockets
because it is invisible and because we
tend to surround ourselves with people
of similar education levels to our own I
work at an adult literacy center here in
Dayton and one common incorrect
assumption that I have run into is that
adults who don’t or can’t read well
chose that path for themselves
that they were too lazy or too apathetic
to do well in school the first time
around this is simply not true for one
everyone has different reasons for being
at the levels they are and for another
adult learners are some of the most
motivated hard-working people you could
ever meet a few years ago 72 year old
twin sisters Mary and Martha came to the
Literacy Center because they had a goal
they wanted to read their mail take just
a second and think about how much you
take for granted your ability to read
the mail that comes to you think of the
piles of junk mail the credit card
applications the fliers and forms and
advertisements that you toss aside
without a second thought
Mary and Martha couldn’t do that they
had grown up in a sharecropping family
in Georgia and were only allowed to go
to school and days that it rained
because it was only then that they
weren’t needed in the fields so Mary and
Martha started from the ground up with
basic letter recognition at age 72 a few
months later they walked in through the
front doors smiling from ear-to-ear and
waving a piece of paper the sisters had
just been told that they wouldn’t get
their regular meals on wheels delivery
over the Labor Day weekend
due to the holiday schedule they didn’t
care about the food all the sisters
cared about was that they could read
that notice they were thrilled they were
proud they felt accomplished and they
were the furthest thing from ashamed
when was the last time you were that
excited about being able to read
something for Mary and Martha and for
all of us the ability to read is an
absolute game changer being able to read
and write actually changes the way we
think literacy expert Walter J Young
describes the ways in which writing
restructures human consciousness writing
is detached from the writer
unlike speech which is immediately
attached to the speaker by learning how
to read the written word we learn how to
separate ideas in time and we learned
that it is possible for ideas to endure
beyond the moment that their first
thought of case in point I didn’t need
to meet mr. Ong to learn what he thought
I could read his book instead and this
changes how we think many complex mental
processes are involved when we read as
babies we first experience language as
sounds that carry meaning and wood we
learn how to read and write we learn
that those sounds can have physical
representation as symbols on a page
reading relies on reversing this order
on turning symbols back into sounds back
into meaning the two main cognitive
building blocks involved with reading
are comprehension and decoding
comprehension comes first that’s our
ability to understand the meaning behind
the words and this meaning is always
made up of many parts definition tone
context relevance formality and many
more a more subtle aspect of
comprehension is the ability to infer to
read between the lines and hear what
isn’t said decoding comes next
decoding is our ability to process
language by recognizing its component
parts this is where breaking words down
sounding them out and noticing patterns
and spelling and meaning come into play
becoming a better reader really means
developing these decoding skills words
and sentences have endless combinations
once we realize that we are just
rearranging the same elements over and
over and over again for people who don’t
acquire this understanding earlier in
life everything is harder because what’s
really missing is that ability to
transfer knowledge from one context to
another when you have literacy skills
you probably have no clue how much you
read every day when something is
familiar to you it registers faster so
the more you see certain signs signals
and messages the more they sink into the
background so your brain can focus on
aberrations from those norms instead of
having to figure out consciously while
going 60 miles an hour down the highway
that that sign over there says no edge
lines you can focus on your car’s
position on the road keeping yourself
and everyone around you safer literacy
is like this in all aspects of life it
becomes an automatic process so we can
focus on what’s really important keeping
up with the news applying for jobs
taking medicines properly handling money
responsibly and of course staying
connected with our friends families and
communities when any one of us is less
able to do any of these things it
threatens everyone’s well-being and our
society stability often in ways you
wouldn’t think of for example children
of low literate parents have a 72%
chance of being at the lowest literacy
levels themselves breaking this cycle is
essential literacy is essential because
literacy is the tool that allows us to
take everything else for granted
literacy enables us to participate in
all of life the good news is that the
flip side of the cycle is true as well
literacy is a value that sticks with
people I grew up in an Air Force family
and when we got stationed in Dayton it
was just a couple weeks later that my
parents took us to the downtown library
branch to get our library cards and all
the chaos of moving books and stories
were a form of stability comfort and
connection
and that has always remained with me and
last month in the beautiful new building
at that same location I married the love
of my life in that library
more importantly Martha one of the two
sisters I told you about earlier
continues to come to the Literacy Center
her sister has passed away but Martha
comes every week and still works with
her original tutor four years ago
Martha couldn’t read her mail today
Martha is writing her life story chapter
by chapter our words and our ideas have
the power to outlive us when we read we
enter into conversations we didn’t even
know were happening when we write we
create something for the future for
people we’ve never met and we’ll never
meet an act of hope literacy is
connection across time and across place
literacy honors human dignity and gives
us hope for a better world one that we
can create together chapter by chapter
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