September, 2011 Literacy Statistics

American Context Over one million children drop out of school each year, costing the nation over $240 billion in lost earning, forgone tax revenues, and expenditures for social services. More than 20 % of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level – far below the level needed to earn a living wage More than three out of four of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 685 of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five of America’s prison inmates are illiterate. Approximately, 50% of the nation’s unemployed youth age are functional illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.

44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child. 60% of America’s prison inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems. Nearly half of America’s adults are poor readers, or “functionally illiterate.” They cannot carry out simply tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job.

To participate fully in society and the workplace in 2020, citizens will need powerful literacy abilities that until now have been achieved by only a small percentage of the population. 21 million Americans can’t read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diplomas. eracyhttp:// eracy statistics

Canadian Context Astonishingly, the estimates – over a range of tests and testing programs – reveal that about 42% of Canadians between the ages of fail to achieve Level 3 proficiency. Over 14% of Canadians demonstrate skills at the high end of the scale – level 4 and 5, representing critical, analytical, and evaluative readers. Unless the situation can be remedied, the consequences – for individuals with poor literacy skills and for other Canadians – are daunting. Unfortunately, Canada’s results have shown little improvement from the first findings in 1994 to the most recent in 2—3 (Statistics Canada & OECD, 2005: Statistics Canada & HRSDC, 2005)

What does this mean for day-to-day living? To illustrate, a person at Level 1 would typically be unable to determine the amount of medicine to administer to a child based on simple instructions printed on a bottle. Those at Level 2 can understand simply materials only. Because these individuals frequently develop coping skills which mask their difficulty and allow them to deal with everyday literacy demands, they (and others) may overestimate their proficiency, though they have difficulty in novel situations, such as when learning new job skilss. (Statistics Canada & OECD, 2005).