telephone and a red balloon and a
picture of a cow jumping over the moon
do you remember when your parents used
to read Goodnight Moon to you at night
on one hand you could barely contain
your excitement about being snuggled in
bed with your parents but on the other
hand you knew that this would signal
bedtime you would always say please just
read one more page then as you started
getting older you started reading these
bedtime books in middle school we would
read the epic Harry Potter series today
it’s ironic because we’re struggling to
finish Beowulf and we would do anything
to fall asleep hello
I’m Shana pearl and today I will be
presenting a topic that I’m extremely
passionate about literacy reading allows
us to communicate our emotions and
feelings on an extremely personal level
what I enjoy most about reading is the
journey into other people’s lives by
merely looking at a page and reading the
words I grew up in a household where I
was read to every night my mom made sure
that I could comprehend the basic
bedtime stories that she was reading to
me as I got older I realized that
reading had transformed into one of my
favorite passions the older I got the
more knowledge I acquired my dot always
wanted my siblings and I to read the
newspaper every day and one morning in
the summer going into tenth grade I was
reading a New York Times article and
stumbled across a frightening fact I
learned that the illiteracy rate in the
United States was incredibly high among
children teenagers and young adults
raise your hand
if you don’t know how to read this not
so surprising result shows that all of
us live in a privileged Society we all
attend a highly competitive school and
our parents made it a point before we
even started kindergarten that we knew
how to read we are considered lucky
there are many people that are less
fortunate than
that never had the opportunity to learn
how to read none of us can comprehend
what our life would be like if we did
not know how to read if someone is
classified as illiterate then he or she
can see letters but cannot comprehend
words they see words like my title and
it translates to gibberish in their mind
however if I flip my title you can see
that I’ll be speaking about taking the
ill out of illiteracy not many people
are aware of how widespread the
illiteracy crisis is in the United
States illiteracy has turned into a
crisis in America there are about 32
million American adults in the United
States that cannot read and comprehend
books and articles above a 3rd grade
reading level this group of people
translates to about one-tenth of the
United States population these adults
cannot find jobs because employers do
not want to hire someone that is not
able to read and comprehend not being
able to read changes a person’s
lifestyle drastically illiteracy is
hereditary if your parents do not know
how to read you have a 72 percent chance
of being illiterate yourself
due to the person’s mother and father
not knowing how to read they probably
did not have books in their house when
they were growing up or they were never
read to at night a person’s future
should not be determined by their
parents level of literacy this vicious
cycle needs to be stopped
there are many consequences to not being
able to read including an increased
likelihood of living in poverty if you
cannot read you have a 43% chance of
living in poverty the ability to read is
a gateway for information if one cannot
retrieve information it hinders the
pathway into the workforce I stumbled
across a shocking fact when I was
researching the topic about literacy did
you know that in certain states and
counties jails will look at the reading
comprehension levels of third and fourth
graders to predict how much betting will
be me
in the jail and 20 years take a second
to comprehend the statistic there is a
correlation between a child’s literacy
rate in jail about 75% of inmates are
classified as low literate now all these
correlations and consequences do not
even amount to the expense it cost the
United States every year illiteracy
costs the United States an average of
half a trillion dollars per year half of
this number is due to US productivity
loss people that are illiterate cannot
find jobs so the government needs to
provide money for these people another
quarter trillion dollars are from health
care costs people that are illiterate
that cannot find jobs need help from the
government when they get sick because it
cannot afford health care
this half trillion dollars is not even
compared to the personal cost these
people face these people live their
lives going through the daily motions
they have to go through their life not
being able to read the newspaper to find
help wanted ads the United States has
programs to help combat illiteracy and
while they do help we can still do
better the government spends a fortune
trying to help people learn how to read
but they’re just not working only about
10 percent of the literacy programs are
proven to help combat illiteracy it’s
time for a new approach
I discovered a way to break the
illiteracy cycle in the United States it
reaches those that need it most
minorities are the most affected by
illiteracy in the United States a
Hispanic living down here in Florida has
a higher literacy rate than a Hispanic
living in Michigan an ethnicity should
not have different levels of literacy
throughout the country the levels should
be even the idea is easy and inexpensive
and we can implement it right now if we
wanted to one of the best parts of the
idea is that participants do not have to
be
we engaged in the activity to learn how
to read if you turn on the television
with same language subtitling you will
automatically begin reading the closed
captions the exposure to hearing the
words on the screen and actually seeing
the words simultaneously teaches these
children how to recognize words thereby
teaching them how to read our brain also
likes to finish tasks therefore if we
are watching the television with
subtitles our brain will think it missed
something if we did not read these
subtitles our brain will continue to
have a or what did that say throughout
the rest of the program for many of us
when we were little the television was
our babysitter while our parents were
cooking dinner they would plop us in
front of the television to past time the
average child today h22 five watches
about 32 hours of television per week
imagine the benefits of having closed
captions playing at the bottom of the
screen these children would be reading
an additional 32 hours per week I am
introducing my organization called TV
reading the goal of my organization is
to use same language subtitling to
eradicate the illiteracy cycle in the
United States within the next five years
we know that same language subtitling
works because in India there was a
large-scale experiment in the province
done by British Kothari the results
identified the improvement of over 200
million Indians reading levels just by
implementing same language subtitles at
the bottom of Bollywood music videos
Cathars organization became known as
planet read we have known that same
language subtitling works since about
2009 because this is when Bill Clinton
talked about Planet read at the Clinton
Global Initiative although we have known
that the initiative works we haven’t
implemented subtitling in the United
States and I don’t understand why same
language subtitling needs to be
TV reading is going to create awareness
we are going to spread the word the
illiteracy is a crisis in the United
States that has to be solved we are
going to spread awareness to implement
same language subtitles we are going to
reach out to television studios and TV
networks so we can implement same
language subtitles we are going to go to
advertisers so they can demand that the
programs they sponsor have same language
subtitling we are going to join other
illiteracy organizations to spread
awareness and we will go to the
government so they can make set same
language subtitling mandatory everyone
has a calling in life for me I learned
in my 17 years of life that my calling
was spreading the word that illiteracy
was a crisis in the United States
however anyone can be an advocate at any
point in their life the steps to forming
an organization are finding something
that you’re passionate about find
something that you are completely
infatuated with and begin researching
your specific fashion learn if there are
any faults that can be practically
solved do not look to reinvent the wheel
just find faults that you can improve
upon once you have found your topic
spread the word like wildfire make
people aware of the issue the people in
this room have the power to change
America’s future through various
organizations as via tricks Potter
author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit
stated I hold the a strongly marked
personality can influence descendants
for generations thank you
[Applause] mmm