National Literacy Day

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Registered: 03-20-2003
National Literacy Day
Fri, 07-01-2005 - 7:25am

The U.S. Congress designated July 2, 2000 as National Literacy Day. States, cities and counties also occasionally pass laws declaring a literacy month or week in their own jurisdictions. However, there is no permanently-established National Literacy Day.

A more complex, more realistic conception of literacy that emphasizes its uses in adult activities helped create momentum for new forms of literacy measurement. To determine the literacy skills of American adults, the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) used test items that resembled everyday life tasks involving prose, document and quantitative skills. The NALS classified the results into five levels that are now commonly used to describe adults' literacy skills.

Almost all adults in Level 1 can read a little but not well enough to fill out an application, read a food label, or read a simple story to a child. Adults in Level 2 usually can perform more complex tasks such as comparing, contrasting, or integrating pieces of information, but usually not higher level reading and problem-solving skills. Adults in levels 3 through 5 usually can perform the same types of more complex tasks on increasingly lengthy and dense texts and documents.

Very few adults in the US are truly illiterate. Rather, there are many adults with low literacy skills who lack the foundation they need to find and keep decent jobs, support their children's education, and participate actively in civic life. Between 21 and 23 percent of the adult population, or approximately 44 million people, according to the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), scored in Level 1 (see description above). Another 25-28 percent of the adult population, or between 45 and 50 million people, scored in Level 2. Literacy experts believe that adults with skills at Levels 1 and 2 lack a sufficient foundation of basic skills to function successfully in our society.

For more info: http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/faqs.html#national


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