Obstacles to Literacy - AAACE-NLA Discussion

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Subject: [AAACE-NLA] cuses of low adult literacy From: George Demetrion george.demetrion at lvgh.org Date: Wed May 24 14:06:17 EDT 2006

Colleagues,

For an upcoming presentation on adult literacy to a civic group, I've mostly borrowed and amplified on the following five points to identify major causes of low literacy in the US. On the last category, learning difficulties, I improvised. My request is twofold:

1. Are there areas that I'm missing?

2. Do the areas I have identified sound reasonable?

If you prefer please contact me personally at george.demetrion at lvgh.org, although the topic, I assume is of general interest that may elicit some public interest on the list.

Thank you very much,

George Demetrion

________________________________________________________________________ ___

Causes of Low Level English literacy amongst adults

1. Increasing standards of what counts as literacy. Literacy is not something that can be defined by a static grade level, but is measured against the perceived literacy needs of individuals shaped, in part, by society and culture. For basic literacy population the higher end achievement is high school equivalency achievement. Also important is mastering the print-based needs of obtaining and keeping a sustainable job, understanding and filling out forms of various types, basic math, capacity to write a basic letter, rudimentary computer-based mastery and knowing how to access information from various print sources in home, work, community, and commercial environments. All of these pertain to the ESOL population. The higher end here would be entrance into college and obtaining a professional or entry level administrative position. A cause of low literacy is that the ladder has been raised on what functional proficiency consists of.


2. Increasing immigrant population. 31.4 million immigrants identified in 2000 census. Immigrant groups are at the lowest levels of English literacy. This pertains also to immigrants from English speaking countries, particularly the Caribbean Islands where those who sign up for literacy classes are typically at a much lower literacy level than US born adults.


3. Student mobility. About 60% of students in the US make unscheduled school changes between grades 1 and 12. The student who moves a lot is typically from a lower income family and/or attends an inner city school. In areas of high rent, poor housing and economic hardship, school populations changing as much as 100% per year are increasingly common. Such mobility creates much instability and is a contributing cause to high numbers of inner city students not reading to grade school level.


4. Drop out rates and increasing numbers of students, especially in the cities not reading at grade level all the way through their schooling and getting further behind and socially passed year after year. This would be bad enough if high school drop outs were ready to prepare for the GED, but this is rarely the case. Most, in fact, lack the basic literacy and numeracy skills needed to succeed in a GED program, and may lack the basic skills to succeed in a pre-GED program. This, in turn, contributes to the alarming life long gap between the educationally haves and have nots, which, in turn, help to foster generational cycles of low literacy.


5. Learning Difficulties. Undiagnosed learning disabilities, has been identified as an important cause of adult illiteracy. Whether one wants to stay with the specific notion of learning disabilities, it is at the least indisputable that millions of adults have tremendous learning difficulties in relation to reading and writing. For many, those difficulties were pervasive throughout their public schooling, which acted to keep them back in their learning, and in any event, impacts on their ability to learn as adults even if they have enrolled in an adult literacy or adult basic education programs. What we typically see in adult literacy, even among the most dedicated students, is modest progress, which, except for the most advanced students is still a far cry from fluent, independent literacy. Thus, one of the causes of adult illiteracy is the current rate of low literacy, for whatever reasons, and the difficulty of moving substantially beyond current levels of mastery. One might say that illiteracy is self-perpetuating even as people can and do make progress in ways that matter to them as we have seen in the case-study profiles.

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] cuses of low adult literacy From: Benseman John j.benseman at auckland.ac.nz Date: Thu May 25 01:06:55 EDT 2006

George - do you want to grapple with the whole issue of 'skill deterioration' where literacy skills diminish if they are not used/developed etc. A dicey one I realise, but people find it mildly reassuring as an explanation as to why adults' skill levels don't seem to quite match what the schools tell us.

John


John Benseman PhD

Faculty of Education The University of Auckland Auckland, NZ E-mail: <mailto:j.benseman at auckland.ac.nz> j.benseman at auckland.ac.nz <mailto:j.benseman at auckland.ac.nz> Phone: 0064 9 373 7599 ext 87161 Office location: Room 365, N Block, Epsom Campus Mail: PB 92019, Auckland, NZ

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] cuses of low adult literacy From: Andrea Wilder andreawilder at comcast.net Date: Thu May 25 09:07:10 EDT 2006

Courageous man...

George, I'd distinguish between LEARNING DIFFICULTIES and LEARNING DISABILITIES.

IDEA has a legal definition of LEARNING DISABILITY. (see google)

Sometimes this is helpful, sometimes not.

People with a brain that learns to read DIFFERENTLY is called a person with a LEARNING DISABILITY. by the LD community.. This is a person with a COGNITIVE DISORDER. In most cases this difference can be modified by knowledgeable teachers. What is needed is DIAGNOSIS, so the adult learner and adult teacher don't just spin their wheels. DIAGNOSIS means MONEY. of these people, many have a problem with MATCHING SOUNDS TO LETTERS. Some have the disability of MATCHING VISION TO LETTERS, a small number have problems in BOTH AREAS. WHO PAYS is a big problem.

A person who is poorly taught may have DIFFICULTY in reading, but not a DISABILITY.

(All this may be more than you want to say....)

Tell us how it goes!!! Also tell us what questions are asked!!!! This would be useful in advocacy.

Andrea

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low adult literacy From: gdemetrion@msn.com gdemetrion at msn.com Date: Thu May 25 16:17:46 EDT 2006

Hi John,

That's a good point, which I'll try to incorporate. The whole section of what I posted is what I'm most likely to pull out and keep in my back pocket if questions come up. My game plan first is to go in with three short case presentations, followed by the EFF Four Purposes with a quick illustration for each, and then end with the dire statistics on the relationship between literacy, health, employment, family ed, civic awareness and the criminal justice system. We're talking about a 20-30 minute presentation with questions. There is a follow-up 6 session tutor training workshop in July where we'll look at a whole range of topics in much more depth.

Best,

George

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] cuses of low adult literacy From: Debbie Yoho dwyoho at earthlink.net Date: Thu May 25 16:46:32 EDT 2006

I think George Demetrion has left out at least one important cause of adult low literacy: failed educational policy, both currently and historically. A. Particularly with older adults, the legacy of segregation is still a factor. Many people don't realize that it wasn't until the early 1970s that some districts integrated, including ours where I live, followed by years of turmoil and disruption. B. Many districts have still not developed adequate alternative educational systems for high schoolers who need a different structure. C. States like SC that have an exit exam requirement have, in my opinion, added to the drop-out problem. Teens who are already behind flunk the test, and even though there are multiple chances to re-take it, the resulting discouragement often causes them to give up. (which is not to say that there aren't some positives to an exit exam.) The point is remediation strategies for those who do fail are often ineffective or are just not even utilized. D. Programs that break the cycle of low literacy from one generation to the next are few and far between, and so parents can't equip themselves to help their children.

I suspect others on this list could add to these examples of failed policy that is or has been directly fueling the number of low literacy adults.

"Turning Pages into Possibilities", Debbie

Deborah W. Yoho Executive Director, Greater Columbia Literacy Council 2728 Devine Street, Columbia, SC 29205 803-765-2555 Fax 803-799-8417 dwyoho at earthlink.net

GCLC is a community service of Volunteers of America of the Carolinas.

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] cuses of low adult literacy From: Merle Ayres merleayres at hotmail.com Date: Thu May 25 18:35:57 EDT 2006

I an not so sure of number 3. I think it has to be a big factor. Its fuzzy for me. I always had kids not at grade level. Many teacher librarians have helped in getting kids at grade level. College instructors claim the kids entering college are not at grade level. I don't think you can speed reading up by taking a course or say catch up with your peers if you try harder. Wish I had an answer, Years of teaching I could not get readers to catch up and be ready for the next grade. I think it may be environment. access to books, parental expectations or motivation on the student. I had some horrible stories we had kids read that were not culturally familiar with the kids and I think it may have hurt them. Its like teaching geography to kindergarten kids about China when they don't know the geography of their home town.

Merle Ayres 412 8th st. North Humboldt,Iowa 50548 Tel.1-515-332-4630 Fax 515-332-1738

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low adult literacy From: Benseman John j.benseman at auckland.ac.nz Date: Thu May 25 23:04:11 EDT 2006

yes, I don't know of much research on this; I seem to recall a study of Tunisians by John Simmons that was published in Comparative Ed Review as about the only study on this issue

John

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low adult literacy From: George demetrion gdemetrion at msn.com Date: Fri May 26 12:23:06 EDT 2006

Thank you Debbie,

I incorporated your points.

BTW, some may wonder whether this discussion is germane to this list or whether imput should just be given off-line. I'm receptive either way, and with the feedback I'm receiving, both on and off line, am gaining some solid information.

Either way is alright by me, though I think the topic has general applicability.

George Demetrion

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] Causes of adult illiteracy From: Kearney Lykins kearney_lykins at yahoo.com Date: Fri May 26 15:16:39 EDT 2006

Deborah,

In your list of “failed policies” that increase the incidence of low adult literacy you name the SC high school exit exam, because, in your opinion, it adds to the drop-out problem.

If indeed it is true that an increased dropout rate in SC has been caused by the requirement to take an exit exam, my question would be, “just how does dropping out before taking an exam contribute to low literacy?” Is not the exit exam administered at the end of one’s high school career? That is, shouldn’t one have already achieved a nominal degree of literacy well before taking such an exam, say, by 6th grade? Or the 8th or 9th?

Of course, the political pressure that drove many states to institute exit exams was driven by the growing recognition that possession of a HS diploma is not a reliable indicator of possessing a fundamentally sound education. Regarding these exams, I am curious to know what alternative you would suggest? If the schools will not (or cannot) teach students to the level expected by the society that it serves, and if the students do not take an exam that society has determined is necessary because of the degraded criteria behind today’s diplomas, how are we to go about objectively measuring one’s level of literacy?

I also do not follow this assertion: “Programs that break the cycle of low literacy from one generation to the next are few and far between, and so parents can't equip themselves to help their children.” They can’t? Or they don’t. Just how much “equipage” does it take to tell your child, “get out of bed,” “go to school,” “listen to your teachers,” or “do your homework”? The failure to hold one’s children accountable is not due to a failure of underutilized remediation strategies, or under-funding of a government program, or because of the lingering vestiges of segregation. It is because of poor parents.

Abstractions such as “cycles” and “generations” do not address the concrete causes manifested in the here and now. The greatest failed policy of our time is irresponsible parenting, and we can’t fix it.


Kearney Lykins ESOL Teacher Virginia Beach, VA

Kearney_Lykins at yahoo.com

Subject: [AAAcE-NLA] causes of low adult literacy Martha Jean From: Martha Jean mjean at communityactioninc.org Date: Tue May 30 08:44:30 EDT 2006

Hello George,

In my Reading Theory Trainings I frequently say to participants that if I could change one thing in our education system, that I believe would make the greatest improvement, it would be that in college teachers-to-be would learn one research based reading method...no reinventing the wheel for every new teacher. For adult education that translates into our teachers actually knowing how to teach reading. My experience as a trainer shows that, like myself when I began in adult education, wether you have a teaching degree or not, you probably don't know how to teach reading so that every student ( with learning difficulties or learning disabilities)can learn. No matter the cause of illiteracy, you need a teacher who uses a proven reading method (multi-sensory structured language approach) for students to become good readers.

Yours,

Martha Jean Trainer: Learning Disabilities ABE 1 Teacher/ ABE-GED Counselor Community Action Inc Haverhill, MA 01830

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: George Demetrion george.demetrion at lvgh.org Date: Tue May 30 10:28:12 EDT 2006

Dear Colleagues,

I have incorporated a good deal of the feedback received both on and off line, and have also kept to my own arguments where I still think they hold. In incorporating various recommendations there may be some unevenness in the prose

These materials are too much to cover during the initial presentation. However, in their finished form I will include them in our follow-up six session tutor training.

Feedback on and off line still welcome.

George Demetrion

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: Colletti, Cyndy CColletti at ILSOS.NET Date: Tue May 30 16:02:38 EDT 2006

George and other contributors to the strand "causes of low literacy,

Thank you for putting this list together. This is possibly the one question I am asked most often by people outside the field, especially those who wonder why our learners didn't "get it" when they were in school. It is a hard question to answer quickly, concisely and yet completely without losing the attention of the listener who has other things on their mind. This list offers a good beginning to answering questions about what we do. This could be a good email resource as well as something to be used in presentations.

Cyndy Colletti Illinois State Library Literacy Office

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: John Gordon jgordon at fortunesociety.org Date: Thu Jun 1 10:43:21 EDT 2006

George,

A couple of reactions. 1) I think it's important to note that schools in the Northeast, in New York anyway, are probably as segregated now as they were in the 1950s. They may actually be more segregated.

2) Something a friend once said to me really struck home. He offered what I believe is a fairly common scenario. A child grows up in a neighborhood like Bedford Stuyvesant, Harlem, or any number of poor neighborhoods in New York City. He/She (let's take she) is really into school. She always does her homework, studies hard, gets A's all the way through elementary and middle school, does everything the teachers ever asked and more. Then she gets to a high school with kids from middle class neighborhoods and find herelf hopelessly behind. The kinds of material the other kids have read, the kinds of writing they have done, the kinds of educational experiences they have been exposed to are fundamentally different.

I think when we are looking at educational policies, the issue of race and racism cannot be ignored. Yes, parents have responsibilities, but as the example above indicates, there's a lot more to the picture. The public school system, elected officials, and, ultimately of course, all of us, have a responsibility to address the stark imbalances in educational opportunity that have existed, and continue to exist, since black people came to this country. In my lifetime, they not only have not done that, they haven't made a serious and credible effort.

john

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: Margery Freeman freemannola at verizon.net Date: Fri Jun 2 17:46:04 EDT 2006

Thanks to John Gordon for raising the issue of race and racism. I've attached a story that I think underscores his point. It's about playing monopoly: Two players begin and play for a while, accumulating property, building houses and hotels. After a while, two other players join the game... You get the point. It's a very good activity for talking about the causes of low literacy.

In a country whose institutions, laws and public policies were designed and maintained for over 350 years to benefit people called white - and also for decades had laws preventing Native Americans, Asians, Latinos from learning in their own cultural traditions, and forbidding African Americans from learning at all, it seems pretty clear to me that racism should be on the list of causes of low literacy.

Margery Freeman

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: George Demetrion george.demetrion at lvgh.org Date: Thu Jun 8 14:40:44 EDT 2006

Previous message: [AAACE-NLA] New from NIFL & NCSALL-ARCS Video Hi all,

I've been tweaking this. Here's the latest. Comments please!

Thank,

George Demetrion ________________________________________________________________________ ____

Contributory Causes of Low Level English Literacy Amongst Adults George Demetrion in Collaboration with the Field June 8, 2006

The following factors were distilled from various reports and on and off-line feedback from practitioners and other adult literacy education specialists. It is neither a definitive nor an authoritative statement on the causes of low level adult literacy, but it is an informed one. Also, the points discussed present a correlational rather than strictly causal argument.

  • The enduring reality of poverty. Many current adult learners

were children who were not well-fed, well-nurtured, healthy nor ready to learn when they went to school (if they made it to school that day). Physical and mental trauma at home due to poverty, or unemployment or transient employment, or the ill health of the parents causes many children to miss school entirely or to come to school sleepy, ill or anxious. Divorce, chronic diseases, and disabilities are adult problems that children face while also trying to learn in school. Families with financial stability will be able to ameliorate these problems for their children with tutoring and counseling. Families without financial stability have much fewer resources. Many schools do not have the flexibility to offer make up help with lessons, to change the way in which they are "tracking" the children, or to intervene when they see a problem that is on a lesser level than actual abuse or neglect.

  • Failed Educational Policy, both currently and historically. A.

Particularly with older adults, the legacy of segregation is still a factor. Many people don't realize that it wasn't until the early 1970s that some districts integrated, followed by years of turmoil and disruption. B. Many districts have still not developed adequate alternative educational systems for high schoolers who need a different structure. C. States that have an exit exam requirement may have added to the drop-out problem. Teens who are already behind flunk the test, and even though there are multiple chances to re-take it, the resulting discouragement often causes them to give up. The point is remediation strategies for those who do fail are often ineffective or are just not even utilized. D. Programs that break the cycle of low literacy from one generation to the next are few and far between, and so parents can't equip themselves to help their children.

  • Increasing standards of what counts as literacy. Literacy is

not something that can be defined by a static grade level, but is measured against the perceived literacy needs of individuals shaped, in part, by society and culture. For basic literacy population the higher end achievement is high school equivalency achievement. Also important is mastering the print-based needs of obtaining and keeping a sustainable job, understanding and filling out forms of various types, basic math, capacity to write a basic letter, rudimentary computer-based mastery and knowing how to access information from various print sources in home, work, community, and commercial environments. All of these pertain to the ESOL population. The higher end here would be entrance into college and obtaining a professional or entry level administrative position. One cause of low literacy is that the ladder of what functional proficiency consists of has been raised.

  • Increasing immigrant population. 31.4 million immigrants were

identified in 2000 census. Immigrant groups as among the lowest levels of English literacy. This includes the subgroup of refugees from African nations such as Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan, and also Afghanistan that have been war-torn for years, in which schooling was not an option for many in those countries. This also pertains to immigrants from English speaking countries, particularly the Caribbean Islands where those who sign up for literacy classes are typically at a much lower literacy level than US born adults who sign up for literacy classes.

  • Student mobility. About 60% of students in the US make

unscheduled school changes between grades 1 and 12. Students who move may miss key pieces of instruction in reading and never catch up, a problem which gets compounded in the higher grades, particularly when students are passed through "social promotion." The student who moves a lot is typically from a lower income family and/or attends an inner city school. In areas of high rent, poor housing and economic hardship, school populations changing as much as 100% per year are increasingly common.

  • Drop out rates and increasing numbers of students, especially in

the cities not reading at grade level. All the way through their schooling, such students are getting further behind as they are socially passed year after year, or sometimes misplaced in special education classes. This would be a problem even if high school drop outs were ready to prepare for the GED, but this is rarely the case. Most, in fact, lack the basic literacy and numeracy skills needed to succeed in a GED program, and may lack the basic skills to succeed in a pre-GED program. This, in turn, contributes to the alarming life long gap between the educationally haves and have nots, which, in turn, help to foster generational cycles of low literacy. High drop out rates are both a symptom of low literacy and a contributory factor.

  • Learning Disabilities. Undiagnosed learning disabilities,

including a broad range of reading disabilities, have been identified as an important cause of adult illiteracy. Based on research in the neurosciences from various countries, the critical factor is the neurologically-based difference in the way the brain processes the smallest bits of language, i.e., phonemes. Those with LD have abilities in many areas but have deep deficits in receptive or receptive verbal processing in reading, writing, comprehension, and/or speech.

  • Learning Difficulties. Whether one can always point to the

highly technical term learning disabilities, it is indisputable, at the least that millions of adults have tremendous learning difficulties in relation to reading and writing. For many, those difficulties were pervasive throughout their public schooling, which acted to keep them back in their learning, and in any event, impacts on their ability to learn as adults even if they have enrolled in an adult literacy or adult basic education programs. What we typically see in adult literacy, even among the most dedicated students, is modest progress, which, except for the most advanced students is still a far cry from fluent, independent literacy. Thus, one of the causes of adult illiteracy is the current rate of low literacy, for whatever reasons, and the difficulty of moving substantially beyond current levels of mastery. One might say that illiteracy is self-perpetuating even as people can and do make progress in ways that matter to them as we have seen in the case-study profiles.


  • Low self expectations/ lack of use. In addition, students who

have had trouble specifically in reading during school not only struggle to learn to read but often also suffer from poor self- efficacy and self-respect. They learn early that they must be "dumb" since they have trouble learning to read. This perception follows them through adult hood, regardless of their gains in reading skill. Moreover, the literacy skills that students might have had at one point in their lives diminish if not used on a regular basis. Many adults who enter programs in their 30s, 40s and 50s have read little or nothing since they attended school as children or teenagers. Whatever literacy skills adults possessed in their youth, however modest, the use it or lose it saying has much applicability here.

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: Merle Ayres merleayres at hotmail.com Date: Fri Jun 9 07:44:42 EDT 2006

George: I am still not convinced that poverty is the reason for all the problems of literacy as you have stated. Working parents mostly left up the teaching to the schools and didnt have time to interfere.with day to day learning. " what did you learn in school today" aw nothing can be a general response. The schools are left off the hook to easy. Of course low economic status make it more challenging to the teacher to get kids to learn. Sometimes I think what you learn in teacher ed. classes has little to do with kids learning. In college you have the utopia environment and then in the real world you get what you see in students. I often thought back in classes in college that what did that do in helping kids learn. Colleges in general are not connected with the real world. Here I go on my soap box.and treading on someone. Many general ed classes have little to do with helping kids learn as we got filled with too much content and little practical knowledge.

I am not all cetain and maybe showing some bias as what do the learning institutions do to get teacher prepared, what book makers do to get beat results or what school administers who care how the tests come out fiqure in on how the kids move up in class. These factors are not addressed. I may be way off on some of this but wanted to express some of these issues.

Merle Ayres 412 8th st. North Humboldt,Iowa 50548 Tel.1-515-332-4630 Fax 515-332-1738

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: gdemetrion@msn.com gdemetrion at msn.com Date: Sat Jun 10 07:32:21 EDT 2006

Merle and others,

Thank you very much for your comments. This is turning into much more of a discussion and project than I had originally planned when I put together various snippets on the causes of low literacy from various reports. As I'm working through this, it's becoming clearer that the murky issue of causation is highly problematic. I think the point is to find accessible language that draws out correlations between literacy and poverty, learning disabilities, the legacy of racism, etc, as I agree that none of these "cause" low literacy. even as they contribute profoundly to it The whole issue of what is literacy--its relationship and differentiation from reading, writing, and numeracy skill development also needs to be more clearly defined.

What I've done so far is:

A) Compile various statements on low literacy from various reports B) Put my two cents into the mix without a great deal of the extensive kind of concentration I would give to a published article C) Obtain and incorporate field feedback (an ongoing process)

I think there's a lot more to do before one can offer a definitive statement, which was not my original intent. I'm not necessarily the best person to do that, but what I will do, over time, is to take in additional commentary and work more deliberatively toward a synthesis, which I will then post here. At that time, perhaps there would be another writer who would like to take over or work with me in creating a more refined document, which I think is the task at hand.

This does deserve time. However, in addition to my day job (which is also sometimes a night job), I'm working on a new book outside the field and my quality concentration is really on that project--that, and the fact that our two grandsons (age 5 & 2) are now living with us, which is an interesting "project" in its own right.

So I do have limited time here, but I acknowledge the importance of this important work on the "causes" of adult illiteracy (to use a swear word) and will do what I can reasonably do to move this process forward.

If anyone would like to collaborate in completing this work, please contact m off-line at gdemetrion at msn.com

Best,

George Demetron

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: David Rosen DJRosen at theworld.com Date: Sat Jun 10 18:38:45 EDT 2006

Hello George and Merle,

Another way of looking at this is to re-frame the problem. Perhaps "causes of low literacy" could be described as "obstacles to strong literacy." I don't think you were suggesting, george, that there is one cause of low literacy, but rather causes (plural), so Merle, I don't interpret George as saying that "poverty is the reason for all the problems of literacy" but rather that family poverty is one obstacle to strong literacy of children, and maybe for adults, too. Many of the other causes George has described such as learning disabilities, moving from school to school in the early grades when reading is taught and thus missing a critical piece of instruction, and others, are each obstacles. Whereas "illiteracy" is a "swear word" as you put it George, and even "low literacy" may be viewed by some as a pejorative label, obstacles (not barriers) are generally viewed as difficulties or challenges to be overcome or removed.

But why is poverty an obstacle at all? I am sure we all know children from very poor backgrounds who have learned to read well. For some it is an obstacle not too difficult to overcome For example if they have families who love them and believe in them, if they have determination and confidence to learn, if they don't have learning disabilites, if they have parents or siblings who read to them, and if they have effective reading teachers, then poverty is a minor obstacle or not an obstacle at all. [ A recent good example of this is the journalist and jazz musician James McBride's book about growing up poor, _The Color of Water_. ] But, if a child has a reading disability and -- because of poverty -- attends an under- resourced school where there is inadequate reading teaching, and if the parent(s) cannot possibly afford a tutor -- then poverty is one of several serious obstacles to strong literacy.

Poverty is a literacy obstacle for some adults, too, who want to improve their reading or other basic skills. They cannot afford private tutors. They may live in impoverished rural areas where there are no adult literacy programs. They may work two minimum wage jobs to feed their families and thus have no time for literacy classes or tutorials, even if they are available.

As people who care about literacy, our attention needs to focus on finding the obstacles and, one-by-one removing them. As public policy advocates, a tool of policy analysis might be to ask to what extent does legislation succeed or fail in identifying and removing these obstacles. I would argue that our federal legislation fails for example, to require screening and where appropriate assessment of adult learning disabilities and to offer resources and remedies to reduce the learning disability as an obstacle to increased literacy. I would argue that in many states, NCLB, ironically has left more children -- who will become adults -- behind, as it has exacerbated dropout rates. It is time for "Leave No Obstacle Standing" education policies, those which help those who want to succeed to overcome, not succumb, to the obstacles.

David J. Rosen Adult Literacy Advocate DJRosen at theworld.com

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: Alantoops@cs.com Alantoops at cs.com Date: Sun Jun 11 11:31:49 EDT 2006

David, George and Merle,

Well put on all accounts. David's synopsis of the issue is an important one.

The research behind poverty issues from author's such as Ruby Payne and others clearly articulates the education impact that growing up in poverty has upon the literacy development of children and their parents.

Poor vocabulary development puts parent and child at a disadvantage from the first day of school. Poor nutritional habits that delay or inhibit the mind and body from maturing. Inadequate health care that leads to hearing and vision problems. This list is not endless but one that poses a significant policy issue.

David is on target with analyzing how current public policy has failed to remove these barriers for adults and their children.. Now for the next step.

Yours,

Alan Toops Executive Director Ohio Literacy Network (614) 505-0717 atoops at ohioliteracynetwork.org http://www.ohioliteracynetwork.org

Subject: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy From: esthershupe@comcast.net esthershupe at comcast.net Date: Sun Jun 11 11:56:40 EDT 2006

Everyone, To speak on the issue of poverty and literacy connection and perhaps another perspective on looking at how people have been successful in moving toward more meaningful literacy practices (we) myself and another instructor chose to read "The Pact" as an ongoing reading assignment for the semester. Maybe some of the you have read or heard about this book. It basically tells the story of three young African American men growing up the Newark, New Jersey. They tell their story in narrative form including many stories that deal with some of the issues that George noted in his previous email: Inconsistent support from family members, families with financial instability as well as stories about drug and alcohol abuse (parents as well as peers) and violence. The very short version of the book is about "the pact" that was formed by these three men. It is because of this friendship that they are able to overcome the ills of poverty, drugs, violence and racism to achieve their dream 

of becoming doctors.

It is because of the issue of racism in this country that literacy at least in part depends on people of color telling these stories and having these experiences validated by the larger culture. All of the students in my class were profoundly impacted by their stories and seemed to be inspired to achieve as well. Esther

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