OAT finds that at least 35 million adults have difficulty with common literacy tasks. Although many of these adults can read at rudimentary levels, they need higher levels of literacy to function effectively in society, to find employment, or to be trained for new jobs as the workplace changes. Less than 10 percent of the population in need is being reached.".
According to the National Education Association, 41 percent of English speaking whites are illiterate, 22 percent are English speaking African Americans, 22 percent are Spanish speaking and 15 percent are non-English speaking people. They geography of these people follows as 51 percent live in small towns and suburbs, 41 percent live in urban areas and 8 percent live in rural areas. 40 percent of these adults are from the age of 29 years old to the age 39 years old. 28 percent are age 40 to 59, and 32 percent are 60 or older.
As accounted for in the 1986 publication entitled Making Literacy Programs Work: A Practical Guide for Correctional Educators , specifically for the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, one-half of all adults in federal and state correctional institutions cannot read or write at all. Only about one-third of .
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those in prison have completed high school. U.S. Department of Education statistics show that 60% of prison inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems. The typical 25 year old male inmate functions 2-3 grade levels below the grade actually completed. .
Questions might arise out of a person when trying to understand this illiteracy problem that people are dealing with. One of those questions that I ask myself is where exactly does the problem start? Evidence indicates that the problem begins not in the schools but at home. It is shown that preschool children whose parents read to them are much better prepared to start school and perform significantly better in school than those who have not been exposed to reading.
