It’s a given that as a nation, millions of children struggle to attain a functional level of literacy, but Tom Sticht of EducationNews.org wants to know, where does the reading problem go when children grow up? Overwhelmingly–but not always accurately–adults rate their own reading skills very highly. When broken out by ethnic groups, Sticht notes, the ratings are
Whites: Very Well-77%, Well-21%, or Not Well/Not At All-3%.
Blacks: Very Well-67%, Well-27% and Not Well/Not At All-6%.
Hispanics: Very Well-46%, Well-22% and Not Well/Not At All-32%
Just because adults think they read well, however, doesn’t mean they do. When the average proficiencies of whites and blacks on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) prose scale were compared, Sticht notes, the average proficiency of whites who rated themselves as reading very well was 308, well above average. Blacks rating themselves as reading very well scored 259, well below average. What’s going on here? Sticht has a theory:
Perhaps when children grow up and get out of the pre-K-12 world they adapt to the ambient literacy demands of a cultural niche that they find possible to occupy. They find jobs they can qualify for, they get information from sources they have access to and feel comfortable in using, and as they slip ever more firmly into their literacy niche, they feel more and more satisfaction with their literacy skills. Maybe this is why so many U.S. adults think they read Well or Very Well, despite their poor performance on literacy tests.
If they are using themselves as a standard, Sticht concludes ominously, many adults are not able to judge whether or not their children are learning to read well in school and fail to act accordingly.
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