# Illiteracy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 12, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789 "2012-11-12T16:27:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/1 "2012-11-12T16:27:47Z")
When people write about the large numbers of Americans who are illiterate, what do they mean? Here’s a sources that lists the number of illiterate Americans as 60 million: [http://eserver.org/courses/spring97/76100o/readings/kozol.html](http://eserver.org/courses/spring97/76100o/readings/kozol.html) Here’s another one that says 7 million Americans are illiterate, although it goes on to say that 30 million can’t read a simple sentence. [http://abcnews.go.com/WN/LegalCenter/story?id=4336421&page=1](http://abcnews.go.com/WN/LegalCenter/story?id=4336421&page=1) I’m thinking that the difference is that the first one includes those people who can’t read or write in English. By this standard, if you dropped me in an Asian city I’d be completely illiterate; I’d be mostly illiterate in most European cities. But it does seem to me that it’s wrong to count someone with an advanced degree from the University of Tokyo but no English reading skills as illiterate. I seem to remember that learning to read and write is one of those skills in which the human brain has a “window” of learning opportunity. I don’t want to minimize the effort taken to learn to read and write in another language as an adult (certainly I’d have problems learning Korean, for example), but it may be easier than learning to read and write for someone who cannot do so in any language. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/2 "2012-11-12T17:35:05Z")
I think you’re right. Those numbers must be counting anyone who doesn’t know English as “illiterate.” I can’t believe that there are 60 million (or 30 million, or even 7 million) Americans, in 2012, who are “illiterate” in the traditional sense. The 60 million number is almost comically large. That’s about 20% of the population! That must be using the widest conceivable definition of illiterate. Perhaps counting anyone who can’t read at a college level. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/3 "2012-11-12T18:28:54Z")
I wonder how they’d count my father-in-law, who lives in Chicago. He has trouble reading English, though he manages with some difficulty. However, he reads several Chinese-languages newspapers every day, and his house is filled with Chinese books. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/4 "2012-11-14T00:12:59Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > I think you’re right. Those numbers must be counting anyone who doesn’t know English as “illiterate.” I can’t believe that there are 60 million (or 30 million, or even 7 million) Americans, in 2012, who are “illiterate” in the traditional sense. > > The 60 million number is almost comically large. That’s about 20% of the population! That must be using the widest conceivable definition of illiterate. Perhaps counting anyone who can’t read at a college level. The OP’s cite says > [@](#): > > Rather than throwing up our hands once more, we should recognize some explanations for these latest areas of disagreement. Some of the figures refer to [10] 1973 compilations. Others represent an effort to update these figures, but all methods of updating cannot be identical. No one can be certain which of several methods is the best. Other differences depend on where we draw the line between the categories ‘functional’ and ‘marginal.’ Again, this is a somewhat random matter and it simply isn’t possible, or worth our time, to try to legislate an arbitrary line. The points that matter, in my own opinion, are the following: Nobody’s updated figure for the ‘functional’ and ‘marginal’ together is less than 60 million. The total present adult population (1984) is 174 minion. By even the most conservative calculations, then, we are speaking here of well above one third of all American adults. > > In recent discussions with Hunter and with the directors of the Texas APL, I have proposed the following minimal estimates for 1984: 2S million reading either not at all OT at less than fifth grade level; 35 million additional persons reading at less than ninth grade level. Note that, in both cases, l am speaking of performance, not of years of school attendance. So clearly the 60 million includes everyone who reads below a 9th grade level. I hope the author includes himself in the 60 million considering they use an S for a 5 and mispell million as minion… ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/5 "2012-11-14T00:42:33Z")
[QUOTE=Jonathan Kozol, OP’s cite] … A New York insurance firm reports that 70 percent of its dictated correspondence must be retyped ‘at least once’ because secretaries working from recorders do not know how to spell and punctuate correctly. Another insurance firrn reports that one illiterate employee mailed out a check for $2,200 in settlement of a dental claim. Payment of $22.00 had been authorized. … [/QUOTE] This leads me to believe that this is an old article. How often is correspondence dictated nowadays in such a way that errors require a _retype_ as opposed to a few clicks or key presses to correct a misspelling? Seems to me that the article’s secretaries are using typewriters. How often do white collar workers dictate letters at all to secretaries nowadays? I’ve spent years in the white collar engineering world and nobody had a secretary type up anything. Secretaries were for scheduling meetings and dealing with business supplies if you couldn’t figure it out yourself, and for answering the phone and staffing the front desk. Also, how many insurance companies write out accounts payable checks longhand? Maybe they still do that in Amish country… I also don’t see any rational way to say that a person that can produce understandable writing but does not always spell 100% correctly all the time is “illiterate” in any meaningful sense. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/6 "2012-11-14T00:58:26Z")
Kozol published a book by the same name in 1986. I’m not sure if that link is from the book, but it was clearly published about the same time. I found this sentence, “Fourteen years ago, in his inaugural address as governor of Georgia, a future President of the United States. . . .” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/7 "2012-11-14T01:24:36Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I hope the author includes himself in the 60 million considering they use an S for a 5 and mispell million as minion… There’s a pretty good chance that’s just a scanned article and that the errors are due to the OCR process. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/8 "2012-11-14T02:49:57Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > I think you’re right. Those numbers must be counting anyone who doesn’t know English as “illiterate.” I can’t believe that there are 60 million (or 30 million, or even 7 million) Americans, in 2012, who are “illiterate” in the traditional sense. > > The 60 million number is almost comically large. That’s about 20% of the population! That must be using the widest conceivable definition of illiterate. Perhaps counting anyone who can’t read at a college level. And this is one of the big problems in tackling such an issue. If you can’t agree on the definition of your cause, what can you do? I seriously doubt there are a large number of Americans who literally have no knowledge of the alphabet. I’m willing to believe that there are a large number of Americans who read at an early elementary school level. I can read and write some Spanish but not at the level of a fluent speaker educated at a Spanish speaking college. Does that mean that I am considered “illiterate” in Mexico? I can read a Spanish language road sign that is telling me that I may not make a left turn here and that the road to San Juan is to the right. At least in Puerto Rico English is also an official language so I guess I’m still above board there. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/9 "2012-11-14T03:00:57Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > This leads me to believe that this is an old article. How often is correspondence dictated nowadays in such a way that errors require a _retype_ as opposed to a few clicks or key presses to correct a misspelling? Seems to me that the article’s secretaries are using typewriters. How often do white collar workers dictate letters at all to secretaries nowadays? I’ve spent years in the white collar engineering world and nobody had a secretary type up anything. Secretaries were for scheduling meetings and dealing with business supplies if you couldn’t figure it out yourself, and for answering the phone and staffing the front desk. Also, how many insurance companies write out accounts payable checks longhand? Maybe they still do that in Amish country… > > I also don’t see any rational way to say that a person that can produce understandable writing but does not always spell 100% correctly all the time is “illiterate” in any meaningful sense. It does sound a bit archaic. However, dictation is still a big thing at law firms. Lawyers _love_ to dictate. MS Word, with its spelling and grammar checking capabilities, makes “re-typing” a thing of the past, though. Sometimes there’s some editing and correction required, sure. But I’ve never encountered a legal secretary who reads or writes below a ninth-grade level. Nobody who reads at so low a level would ever be hired, at least not at a decently-managed law firm. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/10 "2012-11-14T03:47:40Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > It does sound a bit archaic. However, dictation is still a big thing at law firms. Lawyers _love_ to dictate. MS Word, with its spelling and grammar checking capabilities, makes “re-typing” a thing of the past, though. Sometimes there’s some editing and correction required, sure. But I’ve never encountered a legal secretary who reads or writes below a ninth-grade level. Nobody who reads at so low a level would ever be hired, at least not at a decently-managed law firm. It not like jobs test some one to see what grade level they are at.But with MS office now most MS word programs should pick up spelling problem. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/11 "2012-11-15T04:28:01Z")
I remember guys in Grade 10 who struggled to read a paragraph out loud - let alone comprehend the words. Illiterate, functionally illiterate, and somewhat illiterate are different things. Some drama about the horrors of iiliteracy about 20 years ago featured a trucker who watched a motorist burn to death because he could not tell the 911 operator what exit he was near from the street signs. Whether many people are really that illiterate, I don’t know. I suspect even if you can’t read, you learn to recognize words by shape such as “Stop” and “exit” and “pull”. Plus, everyone must know the alphabet unless they are challenged or had a very unusual interruption of schooling. A concurrent question would be - how many completely missed schooling, how many simply “fell through the cracks” and did not get educated while in school? Even the latter must know the alphabet after 8 to 12 years of school, often in the same grade… ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/12 "2012-11-15T05:21:44Z")
I know guy in is 30’s who cannot spell names at all or read names ⭕o But the stange thing is he can read and spell street adress better even streets he does not know. I find that really strange has you think street address harder to read and spell than people names. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/13 "2012-11-15T05:39:41Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > I can read and write some Spanish but not at the level of a fluent speaker educated at a Spanish speaking college. Does that mean that I am considered “illiterate” in Mexico? I can read a Spanish language road sign that is telling me that I may not make a left turn here and that the road to San Juan is to the right. At least in Puerto Rico English is also an official language so I guess I’m still above board there. Can’t answer about Mexico, but in Spain you would be considered “literate in English, non-Spanish-speaker”. Then again, our government and our educational system are used to thinking in terms of multiple languages; American stats tend to be in terms of a single one, despite actually having a lot of them. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/14 "2012-11-15T05:51:10Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Can’t answer about Mexico, but in Spain you would be considered “literate in English, non-Spanish-speaker”. Then again, our government and our educational system are used to thinking in terms of multiple languages; American stats tend to be in terms of a single one, despite actually having a lot of them. Why would Spain have higher literacy than US or Mexico? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/15 "2012-11-15T07:47:15Z")
What’s that got to do with what I said? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/16 "2012-11-15T08:25:54Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I hope the author includes himself in the 60 million considering they use an S for a 5 and mispell million as minion… You misspelled misspell. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/17 "2012-11-15T10:39:17Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Can’t answer about Mexico, but in Spain you would be considered “literate in English, non-Spanish-speaker”. Then again, our government and our educational system are used to thinking in terms of multiple languages; American stats tend to be in terms of a single one, despite actually having a lot of them. I had this Spanish guy who was going on and on how Spanish is so much easer than English. I can see why . Phone sounds like fone , fight sounds like fite , night sounds like nite , speaker not speeker , walking but we don’t say g it \*\*\*\*\*ing \ ***sound, receiving but we don’t say the c or i**. Also \*\*may \*\*we don’t say Y , thread sounds like thred, message not mesage. Also message you don’t say the g sound. Anyways you get the point. What is it 48 sounds in common english speaker and only 26 letters in the alphabet. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/18 "2012-11-15T11:57:49Z")
There _is_ a point? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/19 "2012-11-15T19:12:22Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > A concurrent question would be - how many completely missed schooling, how many simply “fell through the cracks” and did not get educated while in school? Even the latter must know the alphabet after 8 to 12 years of school, often in the same grade… How does this happen? I realize that language in general has come rather easily to me- I sort of figured out how to read not long after learning to talk apparently, but I’m completely stymied in understanding how once you realize that “hey, those groups of letters correspond to the words that people say”, it just doesn’t all fall more or less into place from there, especially if you know the alphabet and the sounds that the letters make (covered in kindergarten in 1978, BTW). Or the other way around; once you know the alphabet and the sounds the letters make, how is reading not just an emergent behavior? Is it a matter of not having ever been taught the alphabet and the sounds that letters make, or is it that they don’t make that leap between the sounds of the letters and sounding out the words, or is there more to it? Lack of reading comprehension is another thing I’ve never understood- once you know how to pronounce the words, and assuming you don’t have the vocabulary of a cactus, it’s just a matter of understanding sentences just like what people say. ---
**Author:** ![bintang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8edcca/32.png) [@bintang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bintang)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789/20 "2012-11-15T19:57:59Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I sort of figured out how to read not long after learning to talk… I think you don’t grasp just how much work your parents, teachers, and others put into your development. You might want to give them more credit. You (more than likely) didn’t just “figure it out”. It takes patience, repetition, and good teachers to make someone literate. If you picked up reading quickly it’s not because you were some wunderkind. It more than likely was because your mom or dad read to you. Gave you books (Dr. Seuss and the like), and helped you out a TON. A smart person can totally miss a step because they lacked a good support system and then just learn to fake it in school. Sure, they should tell someone they need help but in elementary school the importance of reading is trumped by the importance of not getting laughed at by your classmates. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illiteracy/640789.md?page=2)