Causes, Effects and Solutions to the Eradicating of Illiteracy

“Sponsors of Literacy”, written by Deborah Brandt, is an academic journal article that attempts to define literacy sponsorship, as well as connect literacy as an economic development to literacy as an individual development. Brandt studied literacy sponsorship by conducting 100 interviews from a varied group of people all born in the same century. Brandt concludes that a literacy sponsor is anyone or anything that influences a person to read or write, weather it be in a positive or negative way. A literacy sponsor usually benefits in a direct or indirect way. Brandt also found that there are three factors that influence people’s literacy: stratification of opposition, competition and reappropriation. In order to show stratification of opposition,

However, literacy attainment, vocational training, and

More than most would imagine, illiteracy is a phenomenal crisis throughout the world. Today, there are approximately 800 million illiterates in the world. Ninety-three million of those are Americans who have basic or below basic literacy. Thirty million of the 93,000,000 are functionally illiterate. The other 63,000,000 read at a fifth to an eighth grade level and cannot understand a basic newspaper. According to Literacy Partners, a foundation which helps low-income parents with limited English proficiency transfer literacy

This critique will be of chapter one of the book Literacy in American Lives. The author of this book is Dr. Deborah Brandt, a professor of English at Wisconsin Madison University and her main focus in Literacy in American Lives is to study about how people have learned to read, how they use their ability to read, and how literacy learning changes with time. In this first chapter “Literacy, Opportunity, and Economic Change”, Brandt focuses on how economic change can affect the value of literacy, and the impact that this change in the value of literacy has in the lives of two farm women from Wisconsin.

It is unsettling to imagine what my life would be like if my father was not fortunate enough to receive the education and guidance that he had. Maybe my parents would not have left the crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg to seek safer lives. I probably would have followed in my grandfather’s footsteps and worked in the grim conditions of a South African gold mine. Perhaps I would become a discouraged alcoholic like my uncle, working as an underpaid, over-scheduled steel mill welder. It is not possible to know, but in most likelihood, I would not be in the fortunate position I am now. Education is a necessity to attain a prosperous life. A strong educational foundation must concentrate on the skills of reading and writing. Often a quality education is not accessible to lower socioeconomic class citizens, which results in those people remaining stagnant in their current class. In Sherman Alexie’s essay, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”, it is clear that individuals of lower class designations must seek alternate methods to become literate to compensate for the limited opportunities they have due to stereotypes that obstruct access to effective education.

Statistically, based on reports from 2003, 99% of the total population ages 15 and over can read and write (CIA Library). Thus, one can conclude illiteracy is not a crisis. However, “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society” by Jonathan Kozol, implies something different. Kozol emphasizes the hardship of an illiterate, and briefly explains the importance of helping an illiterate without providing much of a solution, while Kozol’s essay was ineffective overall because of the lack of factual evidence and flawed conclusions, his strategic use of tone, repetition and rhetorical questioning provided some strength to his argument.

In society today, people are judged by their level of education. Education is the key in society today. According to begintoread.com, today in the United States 1 out of 4 children grow up without learning how to read. Also at early stage of life the brain start developing and adjusting to the environment that they were raised in. In addition, books and education helps develop the brain especially in early age. According to the National Center for Education, Statistics shows that the majority of people who don’t complete high school have basic or below-basic literacy skills. 26% of prison inmates nationwide had parents who had not completed high school, and 37% of inmates had not completed high school themselves. Literacy is powerful in times of development because it leads to success in life and helps with solving a problem.

Imagine not being able to read this essay. Many Americans do not posses the ability to do what you just did. In Jonathan Kozol’s essay titled, “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society,” he exposes the complications of being illiterate as well as how it affects a person on a social, personal, and financial level. He brings to light the troubles illiterates go through right from the beginning, and takes repeated stabs at the way they function, and how it brings extreme troubles. Kozol effectively educates and exploits the overlooked troubles of being illiterate, by providing examples of their embarrassment, using repetition emphasizing on their limitations, and making assertions to explain how they survive.

In “Sponsors of Literacy,” Deborah Brandt explains how all of us are the beneficiaries-individuals, institutions, events, and ideas that make it possible for us to gain literacy or allow our access to literacy. Brandt’s main claim is that a person’s access to literacy is largely dependent on socioeconomic factors. Supporting that main claim, she introduces three sub claims: the first being that there exists a stratification of opportunity; those with wealth and social status; and those who are rich are more likely to be the beneficiaries of literacy development. On the other hand, those of a lower socioeconomic status, those who are ethnically or racially non-white, are less likely to receive the advantages of literacy development. Another

Over 50% of surveyed manufacturing companies indicate that more than half of their frontline workers have serious literacy problems.

A significant correlation between race and poverty exists, with Black and Hispanic Americans three times more likely to be impoverished than White Americans (Proctor and Dalaker 2002). The cycle of poverty and low-literacy functioning is well documented, as is the achievement gap between White students and students of color. Race is a persistent factor in employment statistics, educational attainment, and the acquisition of literacy skills, with significantly higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment rates among Black and Hispanic Americans than among White Americans. The literature on learner attrition and on resistance to participation in adult literacy programs suggests that the

The ratio of people lacking of operational literacy in individual countries of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ranges approximately from 7% to 47% (UN Development Program, 2007).

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations-something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.” - Katherine Patterson. Literacy is a right. It is implicit in the right to education. It is recognized as a right, explicitly for both children and adults, in certain international conventions. Literacy is the ability to read and write, and also refers to having enough reading and writing ability to function in society. People who cannot read and write are called illiterate. People are called functionally illiterate if they cannot read or write well enough to do activities that are common in social settings they encounter. Such activities may include employment, schoolwork, voting, or worship. The power of literacy is something that can change the world. How far has literacy come since the beginning and what is its history; what are the causes of a lower literacy rate; what effects can lower literacy rates have; what about higher rates; what are some ways to improve the literacy rates and; what are some of the benefits to a higher literacy rate?

I think education is indispensable to everyone in this earth , all of people want to study to have many choices in their life . But some parts are not like to study at all , they always hide from education and after that they don’t have good futures . In this side , we going to talk about what effect does illiteracy have all around the world . And it effects a lot , they decreases industries, education and some business jobs because if we don’t have education , it means we don’t knowledge, so we cant help to improve the world’s industry . You can see in Africa , they don’t have good education so they become illiteracy , and then in Africa , they don’t have good industry because they don’t knowledge to improve that

Based on table 4.1 it is found that the level of illiteracy among household heads is higher in Kelantan and Perak as these two states contribute the largest share in national poverty compared to the two high-performers namely Kedah and Terengganu which is lower. The author also provide empirical evidences to support his stances “as expected, the positive relationship between the number of years spent in education and the potential for higher earnings is also clearly evident from our empirical investigation in App. Table , col.4” (30). The author consistently elaborates and substantiates ideas and arguments based on empirical evidences and data collected from the surveys to support his