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Cause Of Illiteracy | End Illiteracy in English - Part 2

End Illiteracy in English

The problem of English functional illiteracy is a very real nightmare, but the solution is easier than you would ever dare to dream.

We Are Drowning in Books!

You may think this is just another blog about a book. Big deal, you say, there are 175,000 different books published every year. We are drowning in books! A very large portion of the new books, however, are good for entertainment value only. Many of the non-fiction books provide information that is of value only if the information provided is something of personal interest to you, but an important question concerning any book is: does this book have what may be called “socially redeeming value?”

Without carefully, honestly examining the end English functional illiteracy website, you may not be aware of the immense socially redeeming value of the prize-winning, breakthrough book, Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis. The website provides a good overview of the humanitarian project for ending illiteracy proposed by Literacy Research Associates, Inc. and NuEnglish, Inc., two non-profit educational corporations. The problem of English functional illiteracy is very much worse than the vast majority of Americans realize. English functional illiteracy not only causes serious physical, mental, emotional, medical, and financial problems for illiterates (problems that we would consider a crisis if we had to endure them), but also costs every American — reader and non-reader alike — well over $5,000 each year for government programs that illiterates use; for truancy, juvenile delinquency, and crime directly related to illiteracy; and for the higher cost of consumer goods due to the higher costs of recruiting and training employees and the cost of preventing and correcting the mistakes and inabilities of illiterate workers.

The much more comprehensive and authoritative information in Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis may be needed by most readers to overcome the tendency to “leave it to the experts” — the educational and political authorities. An honest look at the educational history of teaching reading in the U.S. proves that absolutely nothing done in the last ninety years or more has made any overall statistically significant improvement in the success of teaching American students in public schools to read fluently. As a result of my passion to — at long last — solve the serious problem of English functional illiteracy, the website also has a link where you can download a .pdf version of the latest revision of the book at no cost or obligation.

Unless the teaching of reading becomes as easy as it is in other nations, as our proposal will definitely accomplish, our educational system will continue to flounder. Our students will continue to score near the bottom in international scholastic competition. Almost half of U.S. adults will be unable to hold an above-poverty-level-wage job. We will continue to personally spend over $5,000 each every year, and many of our best jobs will continue to be outsourced to other, more literate nations. Accept the challenge to discover the truth about English functional illiteracy for yourself. An estimated 600 million English functional illiterates around the world — more than 93 million in the U.S. alone — are hoping that you will.

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Misleading “Conventional Wisdom”

Conventional wisdom is anything that a very large portion of the people in a certain area believe. Conventional wisdom may or may not be true. At one time almost everyone on earth believed that the world was flat! At present in the U.S., it is conventional wisdom that our educational and political leaders are making the best choices possible in teaching our children how to read. We believe this because we want to believe it, because we do not know what should be done differently, and because most of us do not have the time or the knowledge to do anything other than leave it to the “experts” — in the same way that we leave complicated home repairs to the “experts.”

There is one almost universal characteristic of the educational and political experts, however. They act in accordance with what they learned in teachers’ colleges or law school — they do not often “think outside the box.” As you well know, educational and political leaders almost never push revolutionary ideas. They are afraid their constituents will object to something that is too different. They usually accept revolutionary ideas only when they are pushed into them by angry voters.

Whether it is conventional knowledge for you or not, English functional illiteracy is a very serious problem. The most accurate definition of functional illiteracy is the inability to read and write well enough to hold an above-poverty-level-wage job. Almost all U.S. adults can read a thousand or so simple words they learned by sight in the first three grades in school, but if that is all they can read they are functionally illiterate.

Fully 48.7% of U.S. adults are functionally illiterate. Furthermore, 31.2% of these functional illiterates are in poverty, and they are more than twice as likely to be in poverty because of their illiteracy as for all other reasons combined. If you find that hard to believe, you are challenged to investigate our end English functional illiteracy website to see the proof and to see the revolutionary change necessary to solve the problem. You will find why this is true and why we do not see this level of illiteracy and poverty. This revolutionary change is needed because absolutely nothing done in the last 90 years has made an overall statistically significant improvement in the English literacy rate. Most importantly, you will find the proven way of permanently ending what is truly a literacy crisis.

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Why Has There Been So Little Improvement in Teaching Reading?

When people understand the seriousness of the literacy problem, they may be baffled that we have made so little progress in teaching students to read English. Basically, the reason is that too few people realize:

  • the extent of English functional illiteracy in the U.S. and in other nations,
  • the financial and human suffering cost of illiteracy,
  • the great difficulty in learning to read English compared to other languages,
  • the near impossibility of solving the literacy problem using the standard means taught in teachers’ colleges: absolutely nothing done since 1755 — when the spelling of words was “frozen” with the issuance of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary — has made any overall statistically significant improvement in the teaching of reading,
  • the vast increase in the need for literacy in our complex society: in the past many manual labor jobs could be done without knowing how to read; today extremely few occupations can be performed successfully without being able to read fluently, and
  • how easy it will be to learn to read using the proposal of Literacy Research Associates, Inc. and NuEnglish, Inc., two non-profit educational corporations, for ending English functional illiteracy.

Here is the way to get the details of our proposal in a very authoritative and comprehensive explanation of the facts needed for ending our very real literacy crisis.

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A Huge Number of Reading Programs? Why?

A stroll up and down the aisles of any large research library looking at the many of hundreds of books on teaching reading would be an eye-opening experience for most people. There are hundreds of books and about 3,000 articles on the difficulties of teaching reading published every year. A recent version of the Encyclopedia of Educational Research devoted 151 pages to reading research and only two to five pages to each of the other school subjects.

Statistics show that nothing done in the last 90 years has made an overall statistically significant improvement in the success of teaching children to read. After reading instruction throughout the first three grades in school, almost half of U.S. students do not become fluent readers and cannot hold a job requiring functional literacy after leaving school. Most people have very little knowledge of how difficult it is to learn to read English compared to how difficult it is to learn to read other languages. What is badly needed is an understanding of the shocking extent and seriousness of the problem and of the simple, proven way to end English functional illiteracy. After carefully, honestly evaluating this website (by clicking on “end English functional illiteracy”), those readers who are compassionate about the problems and suffering of functional illiterates will want to know what they can help end our very real literacy crisis.

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Why Most Adult Illiterates Do Not Become Literate

Compared to other “alphabetic languages,” learning to read fluently in English is a very serious problem. Statistics show that presently less than one percent of U.S. adults who have left school will ever get the training they need to become fluent readers. Part of the problem is that functional illiterates do not want to admit that they cannot read very well. Two other problems are that (1) they must spend most of their time making a living (often with more than one job) and caring for their families, and (2) the location and time of the reading classes are so inconvenient that most of those who enroll drop out before learning to read well enough to be functionally literate.

Unless the method of learning to read is made much simpler and quicker, the problems and suffering of functional illiterates will continue and their numbers will increase. Merely tweaking the teaching methods as we have been doing for almost a century will demonstrably NOT solve the problem. Only a revolutionary change, involving “thinking outside the box,” will succeed in ending English functional illiteracy. Only after English-speaking people understand the scope of the problem and the solution, can they be expected to honestly evaluate the proposed solution for our very real literacy crisis.

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Is News Coverage of Scientific Reports Dependable?

Unfortunately, when scientific reports are issued on important studies, many reporters only read the “Executive Summary.” They must hurry to write their article about the report before a competitor does and it is no longer “news.” Furthermore, if the report requires a small amount of mathematical analysis — as was the case with the most accurate study of U.S. adult literacy ever performed — the reporters (most of whom are journalists, not mathematicians) do not try to analyze the data in the report. As a result, the newspaper, TV, and radio reports badly underestimated the seriousness of a recent report on literacy — the most comprehensive and statistically accurate report on U.S. adult literacy ever commissioned by the U.S. government.

Bob C. Cleckler, with Literacy Research Associates, Inc. and NuEnglish, Inc., two non-profit educational corporations, has been researching and writing about ending English functional illiteracy since 1985. The extent and seriousness of the problem of illiteracy is much worse than almost anyone realizes. People have a strong tendency to believe what they want to believe, and few people want to believe that teaching reading in the U.S. is as difficult as it really is, because they do not know what to do about it. If anyone determines the true seriousness and extent of English functional illiteracy, they will want to help. The best way is to learn how we can definitely and permanently end what is provably a literacy crisis. The “English functional illiteracy” website linked above provides five short statements on the extent, seriousness, cause, and cost of functional illiteracy and five short statements of how to permanently end English functional illiteracy, all of which are proven by the “Read More” pages following each statement. The home page of this website can be read in less than six minutes. This website also has a link for a no-cost, no-obligation copy of the second revision of the award-winning, breakthrough book titled Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis. A careful, honest evaluation of this book will convince even the most rabid skeptic — who is not completely close-minded about the teaching of reading — that the proven solution to illiteracy that we are advocating is the RIGHT way to solve the serious problem of English functional illiteracy.

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Do We Have A Serious Hidden Problem in the U.S.?

Do we have a serious hidden problem in the U.S.? In a word: yes! Functional illiteracy is being hidden. To a large extent, a person’s literacy level causes a natural separation of the “haves” and the “have nots” through the zoning laws separating houses by purchase price and through the natural separation of the clientele and employees of various businesses and entertainment centers.

Chances are very good, however, that many of your associates — and even some of your family members — are very poor readers who have mastered the art of concealing their illiteracy through various tactics, as a way of avoiding the embarrassment and hurt pride of being found to be illiterate. The news media are complicit in this deception. They do not know how to solve the problem of English functional illiteracy and do not want to alienate educational and political leaders by exposing the problem. So they simply ignore it — if they have investigated enough to even be aware of the problem.

The problem of English functional illiteracy is serious enough, however, that for the sake of easing the problems and suffering of hundreds of millions of illiterates around the world and for reducing the more than $5,000 each year that illiteracy costs every U.S. adult, the facts of English functional illiteracy should be carefully examined. Anyone who carefully, honestly evaluates English functional illiteracy will want to solve our very real literacy crisis, instead of merely fighting the symptoms of the problem as has been done for almost a century now.

There are many reasons why any one student does not learn to read. There is only one problem affecting every student, however: English functional illiteracy. English spelling confuses everyone — all attempts at improving literacy for the last century have, in effect, been fighting the symptoms of confusing spelling instead of correcting (greatly simplifying) the spelling. It is equivalent to taking aspirin, decongestant, and cough medicine to fight the symptoms of the pneumonia instead of antibiotics to solve the problem. In the left-hand column of the “English functional illiteracy” website is a link to a no-cost, no-obligation 265-page E-book which gives a proven solution to our very real literacy crisis.

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America’s Dirty Little Secret, II

Please follow this link to see a very important August 16, 2012 blog about ending our literacy crisis. Placing this blog on more than one website would result in a search engine optimization downgrade.

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Debunking All Reasonable Objections to Spelling Reform, Part 4

If you have been reading these blogs and are not concerned about literacy — or more specifically, the shocking level of English functional illiteracy around the world — you have not been paying proper attention to what you read. Or you need to read the most complete blog about our humanitarian project, “America’s Dirty Little Secret.”

If they knew the situation you now face, at least 600 million people would hope you aren’t reading this just for entertainment or for temporary relief from boredom. For the benefit of these 600 million — and for your own benefit — they are hoping you will take action on what you read. For the success of this or any similar humanitarian project, publicity is badly needed. Are you up to the challenge? Do you know at least two or three people you could refer to this blog? Do you know a celebrity whose endorsement would be much more influential than an endorsement from you or me?

This is the fourth in a series of five blogs about the only reasonable objections to spelling reform. Some people will complain that a phonemic spelling would hinder the recognition of the plural and past-tense forms of words. This is not true. If the plurals and past tenses were shown with a standard prefix, the reader might recognize them as plural or past tense a millisecond sooner. When the reader’s eyes reach the end of a word, however, if the word has been recognized (read), the reader knows that the word is plural or past tense — not only by knowing the word but also by the context. The ability to decide the pronunciation from the spelling is a big help in recognizing the word.

What is the ideal solution to our serious English functional illiteracy problem? The website linked here shows the problem and solution for English functional illiteracy. This website gives five short statements of the problem and five short statements of the solution, which can be read in less than six minutes. The proof of each of these statements is shown in the “Read More” pages. This website also has, in the left-hand column, a link to a no-cost download of an amazing, breakthrough, 265 page e-book in .pdf format which — if read carefully and honestly — will convince even the most skeptical reader of the wisdom of adopting the proposed solution to English functional illiteracy.

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Debunking All Reasonable Objections to Spelling Reform, Part 3

Reason for this blog: to start a grass-roots movement of the American public to permanently solve the serious problems that functional illiterates must constantly endure — problems that we would consider a crisis if they occurred to us — which affect a huge number of U.S. adults (see the shocking extent of illiteracy in the U.S.) rather than continuing merely to fight the symptoms of the problem as we have been doing for over 250 years. Merely reading this blog and making complimentary comments will accomplish nothing — readers need to reach logical conclusions from what they read and spend a few minutes to take action to further this important humanitarian project.

This is the third in a series of five blogs on the false excuses people give to avoid making the correction of our spelling which is the obvious way to permanently end English functional illiteracy.

A third and much less convincing supposed disadvantage of spelling reform is that reformed spelling would destroy the etymological or linguistic history of words. Samuel Noory shows that “today’s spelling is in many respects as much an offspring of fancy as of design.” He gives several examples, on pages X-XIV of his book Dictionary of Pronunciation, in which spelling is not based on historical roots. Also, etymologists themselves would prefer to see English spelled phonemically, and thus, from this point forward, have a dynamic history of the language. As it is, we have more than 250 years of repetition of a “snapshot” of spelling the way many words were pronounced 250 years ago — a static history. Adoption of a phonemic spelling of English — as recommended by Dr. Frank Laubach, who is arguably the world’s greatest expert on teaching adults around the world to read — would not result in the instantaneous destruction of all books written in English. On page 48 of Dr. Laubach’s book Forty Years With the Silent Billion, he states, “If we spelled English phonetically, American children could be taught to read in a week.” Dr. Laubach prepared reading primers for 313 languages and devised spelling systems for 220 unwritten languages. He found that adults could be taught to read fluently in from one to twenty days in 95% of the languages and that adults could be taught to read fluently in less than three months in 98% of the languages in which he taught — because 98% of these languages were very nearly phonemic (words spelled the way they sound). In the U.S., almost half of the students never become fluent readers, and those who do become fluent readers require at least two years to do so. This is because there are at least 1,768 ways of spelling only forty phonemes (the smallest sound used to distinguish between syllables or words in a language or dialect), and not even ONE spelling rule that does not have exceptions — some of the exceptions have exceptions! Prior to 1750, English was a conglomeration of the spelling of eight languages, the language of every occupying nation in the British Isles. According to page 2 of Henry Hitchings’ book, The Secret Life of Words, English has adopted words (and usually the spelling) from 350 other languages.

As a result, the question must be asked, “How much more static history of a mid-1700s spelling freeze do we need?” A much more pertinent question must be asked. Let us grant for a moment that the etymological history of present English spelling is very valuable. Should we let the desire for etymological data by a limited number of scholars cause us to keep a spelling system that is causing a severe problem for hundreds of millions of people around the world?

No one knows how many facts will be required to get any one person to take action. Reading all of these blogs may not result in the badly needed action. A very careful, honest reading of Let’s End Our Literacy Crisis, Second Revision, however, is likely to be very beneficial to hundreds of millions of English functional illiterates by resulting in the needed action — if the reader is at all compassionate about the suffering illiterates. This breakthrough book is available as a no-cost download in .pdf format from our website on ending English functional illiteracy.) This is a 265 page ebook has enough facts and figures to convince anyone who will honestly grapple with the multitude of facts presented. It is offered in the left-hand column of a website which gives a very good introduction to the humanitarian project of Literacy Research Associates, Inc. and NuEnglish, Inc. (two non-profit educational corporations). The home page linked above has five short statement about the serious problem of illiteracy and five short statements about the solution, all of which can be read in about six minutes. The proof of each of the ten statements in given in the “Read More” sections after each statement.

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