The one thing I’ve learned most in grad school is how important literacy is, both from a student’s perspective and from the perspective of an aspiring English teacher. Literacy, as a foundation of our education, is incredibly important for our academics but also a skill we need in order to interact with our society. What’s the big deal, though? It’s 2020, so everyone can read. That’s the idea, right? Well, reading is more complex than that.
Literacy is more than just reading words; it’s about comprehension and critical thinking. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistic, in partnership with the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), defines literacy as “the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.”
By this definition, how many adults in the U.S. are literate? The U.S. DOE NCES found in their report that “Four in five U.S. adults (79%) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences.”
Now this survey was given in English, so the literacy report only outlines the English language among the many other languages that make up American linguistics. There are plenty of U.S. adults that may be literate in their native language (native language = first language) but not as learned in their English literacy. This also takes into account people with disabilities.
Even with these demographics in mind, 21% of U.S. adults are not meeting adult expectations for literacy rates, meaning “43.0 million U.S. adults possess low literacy skills: 26.5 million at level 1 and 8.4 million below level 1, while 8.2 million could not participate in PIAAC’s background survey either because of a language barrier or a cognitive or physical inability to be interviewed.”
Ironically enough, despite the popular idea that immigrants must make up these large amounts of numbers and the negative political (and racist) rhetoric against immigrant people, the U.S. DOE NCES found that “U.S.-born adults make up two-thirds of adults with low levels of English literacy skills in the United States.” The leading demographics among low literacy rates are White and Hispanic adults, making up “the largest percentage with low levels of English literacy, 35% and 34% respectively.” These percentages, for both demographics, are shocking and disproportionate.
With these numbers in mind, what can we do? As an educator, it’s my intention to teach middle grade and high school students how to engage in their reading, how to formulate ideas from text and how to communicate in writing and oral speech. To do so would mean to access all students of varying backgrounds, with students who are considered at-risk for dropping out, for students who speak English as a second language and for students who feel literacy isn’t as important to their education as another content area.
Literacy is a necessity for anyone in any field. It’s important, especially in today’s age, that we are able to critically assess the information we’re being given – whether by our families, our friends, our teachers, our peers, our companies or the media. Not only is literacy essential to grad school and the learning environment, but it’s integral to our society and its growth.
For those of you who feel you aren’t a strong reader, it’s okay; literacy is fluid and so is learning. The best advice I can give for people who want to increase their literacy is to practice, practice, practice. Read any chance you can get, in whatever genre you prefer. Find content that is interesting. Mark words you don’t know and do a quick online search for the definition. Once you’re done reading, find articles or podcasts that review the work you’ve just read. Reading is a hobby accessible to many Americans, and increased literacy rates is something anyone can continue to improve.
