11 million adults in U.S. not literate in English - Fox News viewers

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-adult16.html

WASHINGTON -- About one in 20 adults in the United States are not literate in English, meaning 11 million people lack the skills to handle many everyday tasks, a federal study shows.

From 1992 to 2003, adults collectively made no progress in their ability to read sentences and paragraphs or understand other printed material such as bus schedules or prescription labels.

The adult population did make gains in handling tasks that involve math, such as calculating numbers on tax forms or bank statements. But even in that area, the typical adult showed only enough skills to perform simple, daily activities.

Perhaps most sobering was that adult literacy dropped or was flat across every level of education.

[Indy Lurker]

1. But how many are literate in other languages?

There are many communities in the US were daily life does not require any English.

[Swamp Rat]

2. oui

:)

[Callalily]

3. Das hat Recht (n/t)

[LWolf]

7. Many of them.

We also have, unfortunately, a segment of the population who is literate in no language.

Educators see it all the time. In states that have "banned" bilingual education, you get kids who are not literate in their home language or english.

It takes many years to become literate in a new language. If you are not learning language skills in your own language in the meantime, your home language atrophies along with most of the other learning you are supposed to be doing. When laws say you are getting "intensive instruction in English," but don't actually provide for that in the budget, it usually means that you're sitting in an "english only" class, not understanding anything that is going on around you, but you get 30-45 minutes of instruction in english out of a special text, which is also english-only, that is supposed to develop your use of english. The result is many kids being passed along who are not literate in any language. There is no "retention" in an elementary grade until they learn english; they could be in 1st grade for years. Retention policies usually prohibit retention for second language learners that aren't fluent in english, anyway. So they drift along until high school, when they drop out. By then, they have BICS (conversational english), but never achieve CALPS (academic english needed for academic success). The result? A segment of the population who are not literate in any language.

[triguy46]

4. Them are some scary satitics. n/t

[EFerrari]

5. This is so depressing.

On the other hand, my 1st grade teacher thought I was slow and put me in a slow reading group. And she didn't know that I could read and write Spanish.

She didn't ask.

lol

[...of J.Temperance]

6. Yes and ONE of the illiterate is sitting in the WH, babbling each day n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

8. I once sub-taught a private school. Seventh grade English.

The writing skills of the rich students were deplorable. Spelling, composition, punctuation, use of vocabulary (e.g., "The car vascilated down the street." "I am dogmatic about vacation.")

I took the writing samples to the Headmaster and told him that the kids needed remedial help ASAP.

With condescending tones, I was informed that a majority of these illerate youths would be made VPs in their daddy's corporations upon graduation from grade 12 and that their secretaries with master's degrees (like me) would be correcting their memos and letters. They didn't need to clean up their act whatsoever.

I learned more than the kids did that week . . . .