Report claims literacy skills not improved
Press Enterprise: Dec 15, 2005 by Linda Lou
By looking at the way John Zickefoose reads to children during story time at the Corona Public Library, you would think that he's at home with books -- as natural as a "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" in water.
But Mr. Z, as he's known to children, didn't
read well until he was 35. His 7-year-old son started correcting Zickefoose when he read, which prompted him to enroll in an adult literacy program at the Corona library. Zickefoose is now the library's community liaison.
Today, many adults are still not functionally literate. About 11 million people 16 and older are nonliterate in English; about 30 million people have below-basic literacy skills; and about 63 million people have basic skills, according to a U.S. Department of Education report released Thursday.
The report showed that on average, adult literacy rates have not improved much since 1992. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy report, which was conducted in 2003, found that blacks and Asians are more able to read documents and complete forms than in 1992. Hispanics, however, decreased in being able to do these tasks.
On average, the study also found that women are more literate than men.
And the report showed that people with college and graduate degrees in 2003 had lower literacy skills than their same groups in 1992.
These discoveries on literacy and race, gender and education levels are eye-opening, said Mark Schneider, commissioner of education statistics at the National Center for Education Statistics. NCES is part of the U.S. Department of Education.
These three areas are wakeup calls on what needs to be further examined, he said.
Implications
Schneider and other experts say the decline in literacy for Hispanics isn't revealing. They attribute it to demographic changes since 1992. Most Hispanic or Latino immigrants arrive in the United States in their teenage or adult years and don't speak English, Schneider said. The NAAL report shows increases in the numbers of Hispanics and Asians in the nation since 1992.
Census data show that recent generations of immigrants are less educated than previous ones, said Robert Wedgeworth, president and CEO of ProLiteracy Worldwide, based in Syracuse, N.Y. Wedgeworth said the relatively static overall results are alarming. "The suggestion that literacy levels are remaining the same in a world that is changing so rapidly means we are becoming less and less competitive," he said.
But Alayne Sullivan, an associate professor of literacy education at Cal State San Bernardino said that research shows the claims of a national literacy crisis are greatly exaggerated. "We are doing a better and better job, and literacy levels are slowly and steadily going up," Sullivan said.
Sullivan said increases that the report revealed in abilities to read forms and documents among blacks and Asians are positive. "We haven't typically seen those kinds of changes to positive extents for many decades prior to that," she said. "There are reasons to feel uplifted."
The emphasis on literacy has come to the forefront in education in this era of No Child Left Behind and standards-based education, said Diana Blackledge, a Riverside Unified School District assistant superintendent.
The best way to achieve widespread adult literacy is to ensure that every child leaves the K-12 system literate, she said.
Next Steps
Now that a snapshot of adult literacy is available, it shows what needs to be done, said Sharon Darling, founder and president of the National Center for Family Literacy, a worldwide literacy advocate group based in Kentucky.
Literacy efforts should be more focused in the Hispanic community on both parents and children, Darling said. Parents need to be literate to find better jobs and need to be literate to help their children with education, she said.
Sherry Yeh, a Corona parent who emigrated from Taiwan, said she decided to improve her English-language literacy skills about two years ago. She is getting instruction at the Corona Public Library.
Yeh's daughters, who are in elementary school, are getting older and Yeh wants to communicate with their teachers and be on top of their education.
Yeh also said she would like to find an accounting job in the future and needs to be literate. She has seen improvements in her day-to-day life.
"Right now, I can pick up the phone and make a (doctor's) appointment," Yeh said. "Before, I need to ask my husband ... The other day, I took my kids to the dentist. I can fill out the form, but I still need to use dictionary."
Literacy, a Priority
It's more important now than ever to be literate in the 21st century, some say.
Zickefoose, who sits on ProLiteracy Worldwide's board of directors, said 100 years ago, no one would bat an eye if you couldn't read. Just be able to scrawl a signature, he said.
Today, illiteracy is not only a social stigma but affects the quality of life, Zickefoose said. Even with the advance of technology and computers, people need to know how to read to see what's online, he said.
Between 1992 and 2003, many manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States, while high-tech jobs have risen, Darling said. "It sounds kind of trite, but (literacy) does open the doors for everyone," Blackledge said. "When you're literate, you have access to whichever profession you're interested in."
