Literacy
LiteracyLearning to read is like learning to drive a car. You take lessons and learn the mechanics of driving and rules of driving. Why do people put a major emphasis on learning to drive and such a minute one on learning to read? Illiteracy is growing at an alarming rate not only in the USA, but all over the globe. Illiteracy continues to be a critical problem, demanding enormous resources from local, state, and federal taxes. These resources should be spent more wisely so that we can cut back on some of our National Debt.
Why does America have a reading problem? We are the most affluent and technologically advanced of all the industrial nations on earth. We have free public education for everyone to use, more money and resources dedicated to educating our children than any other nation on earth.
According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, 42 million adult Americans cannot read; 50 million can recognize so few printed words they are limited to a 4th or 5th grade reading level; one out of every four teenagers drops out of high school, and those who graduate, one out of every four has the equivalent or less of an eighth grade education. The number of functional illiterate adults increases by an alarming two million people a year. If a child is not taught proper reading and meaning techniques before they pass the fourth grade they will be suppressed and forced to take some remedial course to help them cope with not being at the same level as the other children.
There is an answer why children cannot read but it is a hard fact for many people in the education field to swallow. It requires these professionals, who have been engaged in a form of education malpractice for many years, to admit that the methods of teaching reading they have been teaching since the beginning have been all wrong. The method that most teachers teach is that children should memorize or...
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