Maybe I’m naive, but I naturally assume that any adult I come across can read. I write, after all. Readers are my audience. And you learn to read in elementary school, right? But that of course isn’t the case.
According to the International Reading Association, 860 million of the world’s adults are unable to read or write (nearly 2/3 of that number are women), and over 100 million children lack access to education. Those are BIG numbers. As writers, these numbers should stun us – they did me.
Today is International Literacy Day, first created by The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1967 to to focus attention on the need to promote worldwide literacy. International Literacy Day is now sponsored by the International Reading Association.
Some other facts that might surprise you:
- Teaching mothers to read can lead to a decrease in infant mortality of up to 50%.
- One-half of all adults in U.S. federal and state correctional institutions cannot read or write at all; 85% of juvenile offenders have reading problems.
- For juveniles involved in quality reading instruction programs while in prison, recidivism was reduced by 20 % or more.
- According to researchers Hart and Risley findings in the U.S., professional families’ children hear an average of 2,153 words per hour, in working class families 1,251 words per hour, and in welfare families only 616 words per hour.
These people cannot read our books/devotionals/articles, or God’s Word. As you write today, take the time to think of those who are unable to read your words.
What role should we, as readers and Christians, play in helping the illiterate learn to read? Have you ever participated in a literacy program? Which of these facts was most surprising to you?
*All information taken from International Reading Association’s International Literacy Day webpage
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3 Comments until now.
I volunteered in an adult literacy program WAY back – I wanna say I was fresh out of college. It was very eye-opening to me. It seems being able to read is such a basic thing, and it breaks my heart how many can’t. The prison figures completely blew me away. Wow.
May have to get involved in adult literacy again. So rewarding!
Amazing figures! Does it suprise you that during the recent London riots, juveniles out in the streets didn’t bother to loot a bookshop nearby in their neighbourhood though they caused havoc to many other shops? And because most people are in love with one form of music or the other and nursery rhymes are still the favorites of many adults and children, I suggest that writers write simply and more simply to help the literacy campaigns. When you read some of the deep works of the great poet George Herbert and the elegy of Chidiock Tichborne you cannot but relate or flow with their writings on account of the simplicity of their compositions as you notice a superabundance of their mono-syllabic diction. Jane Taylor’s, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, will always remain a cherished classic to all lovers of poetry no matter how childish or simple some may consider that poem to be. And I am inclined to think that simplicity in writing is an index of our mastery of the art.
The one that catches my attention is the infant deaths and the juvenille offenders. So sad. As my mom says, ignorance is a terrible thing.
I think about Ben Carson’s story, how he started down a wrong path and all his mother did to force him and his brother to develop a love for reading. Changed the course of his life. She couldn’t read.
I volunteer for all sorts of things, but a literacy program hasn’t crossed my mind for some reason. Maybe this is God’s nudge