Improving The Literacy Of America

Reading and writing are two of the most important functions performed on a daily basis by individuals. One problem in America is that a significant amount of the population cannot perform one or both of these tasks. These two tasks are commonly referred to as literacy. What encompasses a literate individual is a controversial topic. For example, if someone can read a sentence and decipher what it means does this mean the person is literate. Or should the individual be able to interpret a sentence as well as write and respond to a given situation to be considered literate. Due to this vagueness in what encompasses a literate individual, I will not state statistical information about the state of literacy in the United States. The statistical information is not important, rather the way the literacy rate can be risen in the U.S. is what is important. A general situation that has to occur to raise literacy rate is the situation where an individual has the desire to read and write and does not do so solely because of instruction from authority figures.

This certainly is not occurring today, as exemplified by the event that “even a best-selling book in this country might reach 5% of the population” (Castell 38). Perhaps a better way to influence the literacy in America is to examine the classrooms where primary education geared toward literacy takes place. This refers to elementary and middle school classrooms. An examination of what processes in a classroom context help develop literacy in individuals is an important aspect of the literacy of the children in America. Three aspects of a classroom that affect literacy are: the power of the teacher, community with peers, and access to tools of literacy.

Power, in this case, refers to the power of the teacher and the extent to which this person expresses this power. The teacher serves to regulate the activities of children. One of the most important things that he does is to foster the interest and learning of the pupils. In this way the teacher has infinite power over his subjects. He can assign work, manipulate exactly what the student has to know for his class, and alter his teaching styles for different subjects. Traditionally little power is given to the student in the classroom setting. Often times students regurgitate memorized information in order to perform in a well in a given class. Th...

... middle of paper ...

... learning literacy desirable to the student, which obviously increases learning. The United States has to move toward implementing better literacy-directed learning in our school’s classrooms. In the long-run, this will help the U.S. compete on the national level with other countries.

But the advantages to a more literate society are obvious even when viewing the issue on a more personal level. Literacy is the key to the social world as well as the job market. Individuals who benefit from the increase in literacy rate will be more successful in life and maybe even have higher feelings toward themselves. The vision of a totally literate America is certainly a very promising and positive one.

Works Cited

Bloome, David. Classrooms and Literacy. New Jersey: Ablex , 1989.

Castell, Suzanne De, et al., eds. Literacy, Society, and Schooling. New York: Press Syndicate, 1986.

Harris, Karen, and Barbara Baskin. “Toward a Culturally Literate Society.” School Library Journal 35.12 (1989): 29-32.

Wells, Gordon. “The Zone of Proximal Development and Its Implications for Learning and Teaching.” Sep. 1996. http://cite.ped.gu.se/network/zpddiscussion.html (31 Mar. 1999).