[AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy

[gdemetrion at msn.com]

Merle and others,

Thank you very much for your comments.  This is turning into much more of a discussion and project than I had originally planned when I put together various snippets on the causes of low literacy from various reports.  As I'm working through this, it's becoming clearer that the murky issue of causation is highly problematic. I think the point is to find accessible language that draws out correlations between literacy and poverty, learning disabilities, the legacy of racism, etc, as I agree that none of these "cause" low literacy. even as they contribute profoundly to it  The whole issue of what is literacy--its relationship and differentiation from reading, writing, and numeracy skill development also needs to be more clearly defined.

What I've done so far is:

A)  Compile various statements on low literacy from various reports
B) Put my two cents into the mix without a great deal of the extensive kind of concentration I would give to a published article
C)  Obtain and incorporate field feedback (an ongoing process)

I think there's a lot more to do before one can offer a definitive statement, which was not my original intent.  I'm not necessarily the best person to do that, but what I will do, over time, is to take in additional commentary and work more deliberatively toward a synthesis, which I will then post here.  At that time, perhaps there would be another writer who would like to take over or work with me in creating a more refined document, which I think is the task at hand.

This does deserve time. However, in addition to my day job (which is also sometimes a night job), I'm working on a new book outside the field and my quality concentration is really on that project--that, and the fact that our two grandsons (age 5 & 2) are now living with us, which is an interesting "project" in its own right.

So I do have limited time here, but I acknowledge the importance of this important work on the "causes" of adult illiteracy (to use a swear word) and will do what I can reasonably do to move this process forward.

If anyone would like to collaborate in completing this work, please contact m off-line at gdemetrion at msn.com

Best,

George Demetron

----- Original Message -----
From: Merle Ayres
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 4:54 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] causes of low literacy

George: I am still not convinced that poverty is the reason for all the  
problems of literacy as you have stated. Working  parents mostly left up the  
teaching to the schools and didnt have time to interfere.with day to day  
learning. " what did you learn in school today" aw nothing can be a general  
response. The schools are left off the hook to easy.  Of course low economic  
status make it more challenging to the teacher to get kids to learn.   
Sometimes I think what you learn in teacher ed. classes has little to do  
with kids learning. In college you have the utopia environment and then in  
the real world you get what you see in students. I often thought back in  
classes in college that what did that do in helping kids learn.  Colleges in  
general are not connected with the real world. Here I go on my soap box.and  
treading on someone. Many general ed classes have little to do with helping  
kids learn as we got filled with too much content and little practical  
knowledge.

  I am not all cetain and maybe showing some bias as what do the learning  
institutions do to get teacher prepared, what book makers do to get beat  
results or what school administers who care how the tests come out fiqure in  
on  how the kids move up in class. These factors are not addressed.  I may  
be way off on some of this but wanted to express some of these issues.

Merle Ayres
412 8th st. North
Humboldt,Iowa 50548
Tel.1-515-332-4630
Fax 515-332-1738
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