Some Statistics about Literacy
Why learn to read early?
Two-thirds of students who can not read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Fourth grade is the watershed year!!!!
Literacy worldwide
According to UNICEF, “Nearly a billion people will enter the twenty-first century unable to read a book or sign their names. Two-thirds of them are women.
Literacy stats & juvenile court
85% of al juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.
More than 60% of all prision inmates are functionally illiterate.
Penal institution records show, inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help as opposed to 70% who receive no help.
The Dept. of Justice states
“The link between academic failure, delinquency, violence, and crime is WELDED to reading failure.”
Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons can not read above a fourth grade level.
The ills of America are directly related to illiteracy
One child in four grows up not knowing how to read
43% of adults at level one literacy skills live in poverty compared to only 4% of those at level five.
3 out of 4 food stamp recipients perform in the lowest two literacy levels
90% of welfare recipients are high school dropouts.
16 to 19 year old girls at the poverty level and below, with below average reading skills are 6 times more likely to have out of wedlock children than their reading counterparts
Low literacty costs$73 million per year in direct health care costs. A recent stucy by Pfizer puts it even higher.
Now are we just going to sit around or are we going to do something about this.!!!!!!
Dennis Yang
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