I think that the literacy statistics are shocking, although being a future teacher, I have heard all of these warnings before. Students are not improving; students are stagnating. Students aren’t reading or writing enough. I don’t think these statistics were are stunning to me, although I can recall many of my concerns when first hearing these. I still have most of these concerns.
What concerned me the most was the first statistics on the page: “By the age of seventeen, only about 1 in 17 seventeen-year-olds can read and gain information from specialized text, for example the science section in the local newspaper.” This is especially troubling considering that newspapers are generally written at a third-grade level. What this statistic is implying is that teenagers cannot understand basic newspaper reporting but also that they cannot comprehend any of what they are reading. While the specialized text in a newspaper can include some foreign terms, there is usually an explanation and comprehension at the basic level can occur. Apparently, this is not the case. Being a future English teacher, this concerns me a great deal because I will have to work with students of this age range.
I won’t comment on the crime and literacy statistics, though those were interesting. It seems obvious that a lack of education can lead to crime but I don’t want to jump to any rash conclusions based on a set of statistics. The adults and literacy section was interesting, based merely on my own observations that many adults don’t read. While the finding that “50% of the population aged 25 and over read a newspaper at least once a week, read one or more magazines regularly, and had read a book in the past 6 months” sounds good, consider it from the other angle. That means that 50% of the adult population is not reading. This is an alarming statistic, as the deep thought processing that occurs when reading can stimulate brain cells, encourage brain development, and even promote lifelong learning.
To sum up, these statistics do not bode well for our society. We appear to be becoming less literate and this warrant deep concern. The question then becomes what we can do about this. How can we encourage literacy throughout one’s life in an increasingly technology-fueled world where attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter?