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Creating a literate nation
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How many people in our country can not read and write proficiently?
Unfortunately, the statistics for literacy in the United States are dismal, according to the literacy report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
For example, about one in 20 adults in the U.S. is not literate in English. Eleven million Americans lack the skills to handle many everyday tasks, and 30 million adults may not be able to make sense of a simple pamphlet.
In addition, two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. The 4th grade is the watershed year.
Luckily, there are many groups out there helping to reverse this trend. 
For example, the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) helps parents and children learn together with the help of more than 150,000 teachers and thousands of other volunteers.
“Since 1989, more than a million families have made education and economic progress as a result of NCFL’s work,” according to its website.
An upcoming Summer Literacy Institute is called Research to Practice: Supporting Learners Through Literacy. It will be held in Louisville, Texas on June 25-26, 2009.
In addition, the 19th Annual National Conference on Family Literacy is scheduled in San Antonio, Texas, April 11-13, 2010. This conference brings together practitioners, philanthropists, volunteers, policy makers and literacy advocates.
Henry Winkler and Jan Goldstein were key speakers at the 2009 conference, and they “inspired and energized the more than 1,200 attendees with their personal stories of how literacy changed their lives.”
How can you participate or help? See:
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