Blog 1/3: What is language literacy and how does it impact us?
This is the first in a series of three blogs discussing the importance of literacy levels. This first blog covers what I mean by literacy and how low levels of literacy might impact individuals. The second considers strategies and supports that can be used within the household and with the support of various family members and friends. The final discusses the role and duties of people like me, who provide reading intervention to children, adolescents and adults who want or need higher level or professional support to gain literacy proficiency. I hope you all enjoy taking this journey with me.
At its most basic, the term literacy refers to the ability to read and write, generally within a particular language. Moving a little beyond this simplistic conception, consideration of literacy levels can also consider not just one’s ability to engage with their language in written form (either by writing or reading a text) but also one’s confidence and willingness to do so. Engagement can be across elements such as identification, understanding, interpretation, creation and communication of printed and written texts in different contexts.
With this understanding established, consider this series of statistics:
“According to the International Literacy Association, there are 781 million people in the world who are either illiterate (cannot read a single word) or functionally illiterate (with a basic or below basic ability to read). Some 126 million of them are young people. That accounts for 12 percent of the world’s population.” [1]
As is established in the above quote, literacy, or illiteracy, is not just a matter of being or not being, but rather a spectrum or scale, with many people located at various points along that scale. And 781 milling people globally are located on the lower end of the scale, living without the capacity to effectively engage with or create written texts. And this problem impacts children, adolescents and adults, often starting as early as elementary school and rarely rectifying throughout their educational journey.
Indeed, statistics from the National Centre for Educational Statistics (NCES) in the US indicate that almost two-thirds of students in 4th grade read below their grade level with high school graduates reading below year level at the same rate. That’s right – around 60% of students complete their high school education reading and writing at a level below that which is expected of their age and education level. Further, “According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old – about 130 million people – lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.”[2]
An individual uses or needs their literacy skills in a variety of ways almost every day. More and more our favourite television programs and movies include characters sending text messages on their devices with the contents shown on screen rather than read to the audience. Daily we are flooded with emails – my own kindergarten student already has her own school issued email address which teachers, the school and the district direct various content to. Our bills, for everything from credit cards to electricity to our mobile phone outline numerous items for which we’ve been charged and literacy skills provide us the only way to know whether these charges are accurate. Ingredient lists and usage instructions on our favourite foods and relied upon medications tend to be word driven rather than reliant upon symbols. Even our car and bicycle manuals and train and bus schedules require of us acceptable literacy levels to navigate our way around. Every single day these are things we engage in and are almost unavoidable as we conduct our lives.
And the consequences and impact of low literacy are more than just a matter of small frustration and annoyance at missing potentially essential information. Research demonstrates that, at an individual level, low literacy can lead to:
- Greater unemployment and/or less opportunities for promotion and career advancement. Those with low levels of literacy have an underemployment rate of about 26% compared to 4% among those with high level literacy. Consequentially, those with lower literacy tend to have lower quality jobs, under employment and lower incomes. Research into this demonstrates that the difference between those with the lowest literacy levels and proficiency in income is $23,979pa.
- Poorer health outcomes and lower life expectancy. This can be through an increase of workplace accidents, longer recovery time and misuse of medications. Further, limits to engagement with preventative services and delays in receiving diagnosis exist for those with low literacy even when controlling for other characteristics such as poverty.
- Intergenerational transmission of low literacy. Those with low literacy rarely have extensive collections of books and deprioritise reading to or with their children, for a variety of reasons. Given reading to one’s children is one of the most powerful indicators of strong literacy levels, it can be difficult to escape from this cycle.
- Greater chance of involvement in crime and incarceration. US Department of Justice data indicates that 75% of inmates are low literate or failed to complete high school. Further research indicates that 3/5 prisoners cannot read. Of great significance is research that suggests the likelihood of repeat offence, or recidivism, decreases by 7-43% following education and reading programs to improve literacy of people in prison.
The economic benefits of taking genuine and meaningful steps to improve literacy levels are incredibly significant. “Low levels of adult literacy could be costing the U.S. as much $2.2 trillion a year.” Yup, that’s trillion… with a T! Imagine the kind of difference that can be achieved if we are able to start redirecting funds from prisons, healthcare and unemployment services. Dare to dream!
Check back soon for Blog 2 in this series, which looks at strategies to implement for supporting children at home.
1 https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=How-Serious-Is-Americas-Literacy-Problem
2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=7ac309f24c90
3 https://www.literacypittsburgh.org/the-challenge/
4 https://www.dartmouthlearning.net/pdf/Literacy-Employment.pdf
5 https://www.proliteracy.org/Adult-Literacy-Facts