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January 15, 2009

One in seven U.S. adults unable to read this story

By GREG TOPPO • USA TODAY • January 9, 2009

A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the United States -- about one in seven -- are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children's picture book or to understand drug side effects listed on a pill bottle.

While many communities are making huge strides to tackle the problem, it's worsening elsewhere -- in some cases significantly.

Overall, the study finds, the nation hasn't made a dent in its adult literacy problem: Between 1992 and 2003, it shows, the nation added about 23 million adults to its population; in that period, an estimated 3.6 million more joined the ranks of adults with low literacy skills.

How low? It'd be a challenge to read this newspaper article or deconstruct a fuel bill.

"They really cannot read ... paragraphs (or) sentences that are connected," says Sheida White, a U.S. Education Department researcher.

The new findings come from the department's National Assessment of Adult Literacy, a survey of more than 19,000 Americans ages 16 and older. The 2003 survey is a follow-up to a similar one in 1992 -- and for the first time lets the public see literacy rates as far down as county levels.

In many cases, states made sizable gains. In Mississippi, the percentage of adults with low skills dropped 9 percentage points, from 25 percent to 16 percent. In every one of its 82 counties, low skill rates dropped -- in a few cases by 20 percentage points or more.

By contrast, in several large states -- California, New York, Florida and Nevada, for instance -- the number of adults with low skills rose.

David Harvey, president and CEO of ProLiteracy, an adult literacy organization, says Mississippi "invested more in education ... and they have done innovative programming. We need much more of that."

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings agrees, saying adult literacy efforts are inefficient and "scattered" across government agencies.

"We're not using research-based practices, broadly applied," she says.

Harvey cites undiagnosed learning disabilities, immigration and high school dropouts as reasons for the poor literacy numbers.

Posted by tumulty at January 15, 2009 3:14 PM

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