literacy

Preteen Girls With Low Literacy More Likely to Become Pregnant as Teens

/ The Old Crank / 1 Comment

A new study provides more evidence that investments in literacy pay off in ways that aren’t directly concerned with job training or career prep.

Released this week at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco, a University of Pennsylvania study suggests that independent of other factors, preteen girls with below average literacy are more likely to get pregnant as teenagers.

The researchers examined the reading scores of 12,339 girls with an average age of about 12 years, together with the birth records among those girls from 1996 to 2002. Girls who had below-average reading skills were 2.5 times more likely to have a child in their teen years than those with average reading skills.

Healthline reported some interesting comments made by the researchers during their presentation:

“This study underscores the importance of investing early in programs to improve literacy across the board, said Dr. Rosemary Frasso, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania and APHA presenter, in an interview with Healthline. “The potential reduction in teenage childbearing is one of the many positive payoffs here.”

Frasso points out that because African American and Latina girls were found to have lower literacy levels, literacy programs may particularly help prevent unwanted teenage pregnancies in those groups. “Education success and better literacy in young children is protective for preventing teenage childbearing, particularly for Latina and African American girls.” (my emphasis)

Frasso went on to say that  increasing collaboration between educators and healthcare providers would be “a good idea.” Specifically, according to the Healthline post, doctors should help preteen patients connect with literacy programs.

There’s more about this research from Science Daily and Public Health Newswire. The study itself is scheduled to be published in the February 2013 issue of Contraception.

This research illustrates the why, from a public policy perspective, it is a mistake to link investments in literacy for youth and adults so rigidly to job skill outcomes. This could lead to a narrowing of the public’s perception of the role that literacy has on other critical social issues, such as health, nutrition, pre-natal care, safety, and community engagement (just to name a few)—and limit opportunities for literacy programs to collaborate on efforts to address them. It’s critically important that public officials, foundations, and other private funders are shown how investments in literacy can positively impact their efforts to address a wide variety of issues.

International Literacy Day: An Opportunity to Think About How Literacy Is Viewed Around the World

/ The Old Crank

September 8th was International Literacy Day (ILD). Reading the ILD coverage over the weekend was an interesting reminder of how literacy is viewed around the world as we head into Adult Education and Family Literacy week in the U.S., which begins today.

The theme of this year’s International Literacy Day 2012, for example, was “Literacy and Peace.” From UNESCO’s ILD page:

Literacy contributes to peace as it brings people closer to attaining individual freedoms and better understanding the world, as well as preventing or resolving conflict. The connection between literacy and peace can be seen by the fact that in unstable democracies or in conflict-affected countries it is harder to establish or sustain a literate environment. (my emphasis)

Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director General:

Education brings sustainability to all the development goals, and literacy is the foundation of all learning. It provides individuals with the skills to understand the world and shape it, to participate in democratic processes and have a voice, and also to strengthen their cultural identity. (my emphasis)

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for International Literacy Day 2012:

Literacy provides tools for men and women to better understand the world and shape it to meet their aspirations.  It is a source of individual dignity and a motor for the healthy development of society.  International Literacy Day is an opportunity to celebrate this transformative force and mobilize to make the most of it. (my emphasis)

On Friday, South Sudan officially launched a nationwide campaign as part of the “education for all programme”, seeking a 50 percent reduction in adult illiteracy among its population by 2015. A UNESCO official recently claimed that South Sudan had the worst literacy rate in the world, at 27%:

Telar Riing Deng, South Sudan’s presidential advisor on legal affairs described lack of education as an enemy, which keeps a nation in the past.

“Illiteracy is the enemy within. We have to promote literacy that ensures the culture of peace in our societies,” he said, while speaking on behalf of South Sudan President, Salva Kiir.

South Sudan should focus on building a nation of peace and tolerance, while focusing on education systems that provide opportunities for self-actualization of citizens, he said.

Zarina Patel, in an article published in recognition of ILD by Pakistan’s financial daily Business Recorder:

There is a strong relationship between literacy and peace. Literacy ensures development, peace and democracy. It is vital to amalgamate literacy with peace-building processes in order to promote harmony among different sects of a society. Literacy provides youth and adults basic skills they need to live with harmony in a society. (my emphasis)

The relationship between literacy and culture, democratic participation, civil rights, individual freedom, and peace are important to many people who participate in adult education in the U.S., but those themes are largely absent from adult literacy policy discussions in the U.S. Most of the traction we get on this issue from a policy perspective comes from focusing the discussion on adult literacy’s relationship to workforce development, often framed by the perspective of employers (AEFL week statements this week from around the country will likely talk about how adult education programs help people get the skills and credentials required by employers, for example). As a policy tool, AEFL week serves to amplify that connection, but, alternatively, it might be interesting one day to promote AEFL week as an opportunity to emphasize how adult literacy can strengthen communities in over ways, like improving health, promoting conflict resolution, enhancing cultural pride, and encouraging civic involvement.

The Common Core’s Influence on Adult Literacy Goes Beyond the GED

/ The Old Crank

Aside from it’s influence on the redesign of the GED, the debate over the Common Core for K-12 can also serve as a window into the views of K-12 teachers on what constitutes adequate adult literacy in the 21st century. This recent Education Week piece by Paul Barnwell is a good example:

Adult literacy in 2012 means being able to synthesize information from multiple online sources to write a blog post or substantive email. It means analyzing which online tools will best serve your communications purpose. It means making smart decisions about what information is useful online, and how to curate and filter the endless stream of data coming in. It means reviewing your digital footprint and learning how to take some control over what information you broadcast to the world, from your tweets, profile pictures, and recommended links.

Barnwell adds “This is not to say that traditional reading and writing skills don’t have their place,” (specifically, he thinks that “[w]e still need to continue to teach students to sustain their attention and thought on longer texts), but he calls for a “greater balance between traditional literacy skills and interactive competencies.”

School Librarians and Literacy

/ The Old Crank

According to this article published in The Huffington Post last week, 58 of 124 D.C. pubic schools are losing their librarians this school year—up from 34 last year. The article begins by describing the accomplishments of one of the school librarians who will not be back:

When Marla McGuire was hired as a librarian at Cleveland Elementary School in the District of Columbia some four years ago, she was first librarian at the school in eight years. McGuire worked to raise $50,000 for new materials, collaborated with other teachers to create an outdoor classroom and encouraged parents to read with their children.

“I really tried to embed myself in the school community,” McGuire told The Huffington Post. “I wanted to focus on a love of learning and really get a spark going.”

Soon, children who came to her knowing nothing about libraries — a student once asked her timidly how much it might cost to “rent” a book from the school’s collection — got excited about reading, she says.

I particularly want to draw your attention to the last sentence in the first paragraph, where we learn that one of Ms McGuire’s accomplishments was that she “encouraged parents to read with their children.”

I think this story demonstrates that as a city, (and it’s not just this city that has this problem) we aren’t really thinking through what resources need to be in place in order to improve literacy rates. I don’t know how many kids developed a reading habit as a result of Ms McGuire’s efforts, or how many parents started reading to their children as a result of her encouragement, (and maybe we need to figure out how to document this better), but even if we’re talking about just a handful of families, it seems to me that as a matter of policy her position was probably a good investment.