literacy-research.com

Anyone who has read the previous blogs at this website may think the only purpose of this blog-site is to sell copies of Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis. You should know, however, that if selling books were my main motivation, I would have given up 23 years ago. I have been fighting since 1985 to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of English-speaking illiterates. I was shocked when, in 1985, I read Jonathan Kozol’s book, Illiterate America. Kozol, who was an elementary school teacher for a few years in the Boston area, detailed the pain and suffering of many functional illiterates that he knew and loved. It started me on a long quest to help solve the problem. I spent more than an year reading every book on the subject of my research in the Mariott Research Library of the University of Utah and the main library in Salt Lake City. I read dozens of books and explored types of solutions that are never taught in U.S. teachers colleges. Most people would be shocked at the huge number of books available on the problem of teaching reading. I have spent every year since then in additional research and writing. I have spent well over $30,000 more for marketing programs and hundreds of gift review copies of my book than I have received in sales from my book. I never ceased to be amazed at the apathy toward the suffering of the illiterates. I have been told that the problem is that “No one gives a rip about illiteracy.” That may not be exactly true. People may care about illiteracy, but they do not care enough to do anything about it! The vast majority seems to be so busy with their main priorities (their family, their job, and their hobbies and recreation) that they are unwilling to spend a few minutes on something that is not their main priority. If everyone would prioritize enough to spend thirty minutes a week in promoting the proven solution to functional illiteracy detailed in my website, http://literacy-research.com and in Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis, our very real literacy crisis would definitely and permanently end.

You may be tempted to  scan through this website and the book Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis to quickly see what is proposed to end our literacy crisis—or even if there is a literacy crisis. Don’t do it. Here’s why. This book proves that functional illiteracy is a serious and widespread problem: it causes serious physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial problems for a shocking 48.7% of U.S. adults. This book thus deserves a careful, open-minded evaluation. We do not see this level of problems because illiterates are experts at hiding their illiteracy, because most families have more than one employed adult, and because most low-income families receive help from government agencies, family, friends, and charities. Even so, 31.2% of the 48.7% of U.S. adults who are functionally illiterate are in poverty (and therefore .312 times 48.7%, or 15.2% of all U.S. adults are in poverty, a figure in close agreement with other methods of determining poverty). This breakthrough book provides an easy-to-implement, proven solution to the problem.

“Illiteracy is the main cause of poverty and crime.” (Gary Sprunk, M.A. English Linguistics) The most statistically accurate and extensive  study of functional illiteracy ever commissioned by the U.S. government confirms the poverty part of this statement. The report on this study proves that the two least literate of the five literacy levels in the study, equivalent to 48.7% of U.S. adults, cannot read and write well enough to hold an above-poverty-level-wage job. Reports showing that up to 80% of U.S. prisoners are non-readers is a strong indication that illiteracy is certainly one of the main causes of crime—poverty caused by illiteracy is another way that illiteracy leads to crime. What can you do about it? Carefully, open-mindedly read the Preface and text (pages 1-162) of Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis and you will know!

Margaret Mead (U.S. anthropologist, 1907-1978) said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis shows how you, personally, can help permanently end functional illiteracy, which seriously affects hundreds of millions of English-speaking people around the world who cannot read very well—over 93 million in the U.S. alone. If that sounds too good to be true, prove it to yourself with a careful, open-minded evaluation of the Preface and text (pages 1-162) of this breakthrough book.

Dr. Frank Laubach, perhaps the world’s foremost teacher of adult illiterates, taught adults around the world to read in more than 300 alphabetic languages other than English. Students in more than 98 percent of these languages learned to read and write fluently in less than three months. In his 1970 book, Forty Years With the Silent Billion, he stated, “Nothing is so powerful as an idea when its time has arrived.” The powerful idea in Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis is that functional illiteracy in English definitely and permanently can be ended—and proves it! Let me urge you to carefully, open-mindedly read all of this breakthrough book and prove it to yourself. Merely scanning here and there will not do—you will miss too many very vital facts.

Ask almost any parent why they want their children to learn to read, and they are almost certain to tell you it is so they can get a good job. Did you know that in today’s world, more than 48 percent of U.S. adults read so poorly that they cannot hold an above-poverty-level-wage job? This is proven by the most accurate, extensive study of U.S. adult functional illiteracy ever performed. Over 26,000 U.S. adults, statistically chosen to represent the entire U.S. population, were given lengthy interviews. This includes many high school graduates who could not even read their diplomas. If this does not constitute a literacy crisis, what does? The simple, easy to implement, proven solution in the breakthrough book, Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis, deserves your careful, open-minded attention.

Nothing significant was done following the release of the report of the most accurate, extensive study of functional illiteracy ever performed. No one—certainly no one in the media—knows what to do about it. Furthermore, the media do not want to incur the wrath of educational and political leaders by continuing to report on a problem that our leaders do not know how to solve. Dozens of scholars over the last 250 years have recommended a solution which will succeed, however. The breakthrough book, Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis, contains a greatly improved version of what scholars have recommended. It deserves the utmost of of the open-minded attention you can give it.

If you have not heard about America’s “dirty little secret”—our appalling scourge of functional illiteracy—it is largely because the media have essentially ignored the problem. The media—and nearly all government officials—do not know how serious the problem really is, they do not know what to do about it, and they do not want to irritate educational and political leaders by reporting on it. Failure to join in a grass-roots campaign to end our very real literacy crisis after a careful, open-minded reading of Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis will show a real callousness to the problems and suffering of over 93 million Americans and an estimated 600 million English-speaking people around the world who are functionally illiterate in English.

If you do not read another book this year, read Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis! All of it. Carefully and open-mindedly. Scanning here and there will not do—you will miss too many very important facts about a very real crisis and of the proven solution to the problem.

Generally speaking, Americans are the most generous, helpful people on earth. If you want to be involved in helping hundreds of millions of English-speaking around the world who cannot read very well, let me challenge you to carefully read all of the Preface and text (pages 1-162) of Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis, Rev. Ed. Scanning here and there will not do, there are too many important facts that you need to know to make the right decision about what the book proposes.