I Hate Reading!

For many of us the idea that someone over the age of twenty-one could utter the words "I hate reading" is simply mind boggling.  After all, reading is such an essential aspect of daily life.  It is the gateway to freedom and independence.  It is the means by which our imaginations take us on journeys of discovery to the outer edges of the universe; it provides unlimited information and boundless entertainment. How then could anyone in good conscience proclaim to hate it?

This is exactly what happened a few months ago.  I was talking to one of the kindergarten teachers at school and she told me a child's homework had come back to the classroom with a handwritten message from his mother across the top stating "I hate reading!" Maybe this woman had been tortured as a child and forced to read boring or frightening books until she had nightmares about monsters springing to life from the pages.

Maybe she had been locked in a library where it was scary and dark with no phone, food or water and thought she would never get out and had been severely traumatized to the point that she could not even look at a book. Maybe, the real problem was that she is one of those adults who is barely literate and can not function well enough to even help her child with his kindergarten homework.

Believe or not, there are thousands of people in the United States over the age of twenty one who can not read the word cat. The idea that in 2010, someone middle aged who was legally required to attend school could possibly have made it past the sixth grade without being able to read the word cat is just unfathomable, and yet the situation exists.

Last year I became involved with YES after a friend of mine got a job teaching in the adult literacy program at the learning center in the main branch of the public library. YES is an acronym for YMCA Educational Services. The program provides reading and math instruction to teens aged 16 and over and to adults with low or no literacy levels.

Some of the students are teenagers trying to improve their skills in order to get a GED and some are adults who simply never learned and just figured out how to get by. Some could have been considered special ed and some just simply fell through the cracks for whatever reason. All come from different backgrounds and have different levels of fluency.

The important thing to point out here is that literacy is a lot more than being able to read the words on a page. It's being able to comprehend ideas and process information, and not being able to read fluently not only handicaps a person, it puts them in danger when it comes to things like being able to follow instructions on a prescription bottle or read safety posters on a job. A person's inability to read creates a larger social problem that ultimately effects everyone.

Please support adult literacy in your community.