How does a non-reading adult function in the world?

I know I am being idealistic, and possibly nieve, but I really don't understand how someone can be 18+ and go into the working world not able to read.

I was at the dollar store a couple years ago, and the teller told a worker to do something specific (can't recall what it was) and he said, "I can't, I don't know how to read."

And the awkwardness told me that it wasn't him joking.

We all hear stories of high school kids making their way without being able to read, but I really don't understand how that is possible.

I think it's really difficult. A family friend of ours doesn't know how to read, or we suspect that he doesn't. He's extremely good with numbers, though, and that's how he made his way. He immigrated from what was then Czechoslovakia so we're not sure if it's just that he can't read Eng. or if he can't read at all, which is what we suspect. It's amazing how he's coped.

There are many adaptive technologies nowadays - talking books, programs that are operated by voice, and so on. I know a children for whom reading is difficult, if not impossible, due to learning disabilities. There are a bunch of programs we use in the education system to help students who are unable to read. Some will read a textbook for you and others will type what you say. Some of these children will never be able to read, no matter what. It's just the way their brains work.

"How does a non-reading adult function in the world?"


Not well according to all available statistics, as people ranging from reading problems to illiterate and cannot read at all, make up 60% of adult prisoners and 85% of juvenile offenders, and about 60% of women on welfare. Coincidence? I think not.

Shale wrote:I think I read somewhere that Nelson Rockefeller, Gov of NY couldn't read. He had to memorize all his speeches. Ppl with that inability often compensate to where it is not noticeable.

They take cues from their surroundings, associate signs (most are international with certain shapes, colors or pics anyhow).

I once took a mildly mentally disabled friend out to a restaurant. He couldn't read, but the waitress never knew that. He picked up a menu and while he and I discussed the options he chose his as if he were reading it off the menu.

Yeah, that is true that they do compensate and take cues from their surroundings. I just can't wrap my head around how living like that must be. The average adult reads so much during the day, for functioning purposes, not leisure. I just can't imagine not being able to read.

Me either because think about it, even at home, what all do you have to read for? The recipe on how to make something, to see if there are any special refrigeration instructions on food, whether something needs to be washed separate, by hand, or in cold water, if you bank sends you a notice that your interest is going down, if the gas company sends you a letter saying you didn't pay last month's bill, etc.

I don't think literacy is an indicator of intelligence. The adaption skills they have must be amazing. To fake it into adulthood is a major thing.

But, I still believe that day to day has to be so incredibly hard.

I found a really great story about this. Can't wait to read this guy's book.

http://www.johncorcoranfoundation.com/johnsstory.htm

John's Story
In 1961, John Corcoran graduated from college.
By 1979, he had taught high school students for 17 years.
In the early 1980’s, he developed over $50 million in real estate.
In 1987, John Corcoran learned how to read.

"JOHNNY CORCORAN, STEP UP HERE." From my seat to Brother Abdon's desk was a painful mile and a half. At St. Michael's School for Boys in Santa Fe, N.M., walking that gauntlet was more humiliating than throwing up. There were seven rows of old-fashioned hardwood desks in our class. I sat in the very last seat of row seven, the place they called the Dumb Row.

"

"Two demerits, Johnny," intoned Brother Abdon. "One for not completing the sentences in your workbook and one for refusing to read the letters on the blackboard. Roll up your pant legs." Standing in front of row seven, I watched every kid walk up the aisle. The Brother handed the yard-stick to each boy, who took careful aim and swatted me on the calves.


When I slid back into my seat, I avoided the Brother's eyes and opened my reader; staring down at those weird lines that marched across the page like snowflakes, every one uniquely different. They seemed to melt before they made sense. I had nothing wrong with my eyesight. I could see every detail of the presidents' portraits staring down at me from the classroom walls. But those gigantic ABCs were from another planet.


Why didn't my book-loving parents know what was happening as I slumped in the Dumb Row? When they went to teachers, they probably heard the same explanation so many parents have heard:


"Mrs. Corcoran, your son is a smart boy. Don't worry about him; he'll catch up in time."


Behind the Mask

As I bounced from school to school (18 before I got my first full-time job), I learned to play the school game. I used athletic ability to override my inability to read. 


I could do math with the best of them, but in the classrooms where reading was needed, I became a non-person. I acted like I didn't care as I began to evaluate the educational haves and have-nots. In that system I was a nothing.


With each year I became more resourceful in dealing with the pain at school, disguising what I thought was a permanent defect. I became the boy with the mask, hiding my scars like the Phantom of the Opera.


When I graduated from high school (by the skin of my teeth), I was well into my masquerade. I understood what people thought of illiterates: We were the dumb ones, the no-goods. I went to two junior colleges, plowing through like an explorer wading through mud up to his knees. My girlfriend went with me. Without her I wouldn't have made it. She typed my dictated papers and summarized books for my reports. With all the help she gave me, she never knew I couldn't read.


I received a full athletic scholarship to the University of Texas at El Paso (then called Texas Western). I couldn't turn it down-and basketball wasn't the only game I played. I learned that essays and term papers were easy for college students to buy.


I became so desperate that one time I stole a faculty file cabinet, got a buddy to find the tests I needed and then returned it to the third-floor office. After struggling and stealing my way through school, I faced the abyss of uncertainty: the path of military service, a professional athlete, or a construction worker - all respectable occupations requiring some reading ability. Instead, I made an illogical choice in my illogical life.


I'll be a teacher.

War of the Words

My two worlds were inside and outside. Most people, like Walter Mitty, dream of doing great things with their lives. I wanted to soar, but my feet were mired in the quicksand of words.


Why did I choose teaching? Subconsciously I wanted to prevent children from enduring what I had endured. I believed in the highest ideals of the profession, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought a school environment would provide me the opportunity to learn to read.

My dad called me about a teaching job near my family's home in Carlsbad, Calif. He filled out my application while I dictated the answers over the phone from Texas. Ironically, the high school principal assigned me to teach sophomore social studies and English grammar, along with coaching duties.


Again I learned to survive with wile. The students wrote their names on a seating chart and then pronounced them for me. To avoid reading the list, I asked them the next day to call out their names, claiming I wanted them to get to know one another.


Students read bulletins and textbooks aloud. To create the illusion of literacy, I always carried books as props. I learned my lines and acted out my part like an aspiring young actor on a movie set. I could calculate grades, but I evaluated students orally, developing my listening skills.

At the end of my first year, I decided to quit teaching because the pressure was too great and the moral dilemma was eating my soul. I cautiously entered the principal's office to resign and emerged with the chance to teach world history instead of English.

Every day presented a new challenge in the classroom, but I wanted to be a varsity head coach. I looked around for other opportunities, getting a friend to fill out an application for me while I feigned a sprained wrist. I was intrigued by a position in Corcoran - a town in California's San Joaquin Valley - both by the name and by the salary.

I got a reply from the school and handed it to my dad, knowing he'd be amused by the coincidence of names. Until he congratulated me, I didn't know whether I'd been offered the job.


As I started teaching bookkeeping, social studies and physical education in Corcoran, I entered a situation where half of the kids were intellectual dropouts; their bodies showed up, but their minds were shut down. They were at-risk students, but I always felt they could be reached.


I was like a deaf person who reads lips, making up for my inability to read by developing other skills. I'd have group discussions, bring in outside speakers, hold individual conferences and use standardized tests with hole-punched answer keys.


It was not uncommon for me to find almost half of my students unable to read past a third-grade level. I couldn't teach them to read, but I could help them learn as I had learned. For all those teaching years, I avoided facing the real problem in their lives and my own, revealing one of the shortcomings of progressive education.

Running From the Truth

While I was still teaching, I began to dabble in developing real estate. In 1977 I was granted a leave of absence to pursue this field and made 10 times the money I'd made the previous year in teaching.

My wife, Kathy, and I rode the California real estate tidal wave for nearly a decade. It was an exhilarating ride until we crashed on the shore of the recession. Even though others were often available to cover my inability to read, I began to feel I was suffocating under tons of papers, all containing my enemies: words.


Kathy had a peace I didn't understand. How could I trust the written word? I couldn't read it, I didn't understand it, but when Kathy read the Bible to me, it seemed filled with truth.


One night I prayed, knowing, perhaps for the first time, that I was honestly speaking to Jesus. I awoke refreshed, assured God would take care of us. A few weeks later, I drove to an inconspicuous office with a sign I couldn't read: Literacy Center of Carlsbad.

A Fresh Start

As a student and a teacher, a summons to the principal's office always filled me with both apprehension and expectation. I felt the same way as I entered the Literacy Center. Would they understand a 48-year-old businessman and former teacher who couldn't read? I was assigned to a volunteer tutor, Eleanor Condit. I couldn't believe this little lady, with less than 20 hours of training, could teach a guy who'd attended school for 35 years. But her determination and patience walked me through the fundamentals of phonics, and the light began to dawn.

After I had worked on basic skills for just over a year, Lynda Jones, the coordinator of the center's adult learning program, asked me, ~Would you be willing to share your unusual story with an audience of 200 professional people?"


My immediate response: "Absolutely not." What would my family, my former students, my co-workers think? The teaching profession had been blasted enough; they didn’t need to deal with a ‘teacher who couldn’t read.’

However, my joy of becoming a new reader was so great that I wanted to tell others about this miracle. After consulting with Kathy and the boys, I finally agreed to speak before the San Diego Council on Literacy.



"I'm a university graduate," I began, "with a bachelor's degree in education and business administration and over 90 additional graduate units. I attended school for 35 years, half of them as a professional educator. In acquiring these experiences, I could not read a textbook or write the answer to an essay question. This is the first public acknowledgment that I have ever made, that I have been a functional illiterate for almost 50 years.


That was the beginning of a road that took me from television studios and news interviews all the way to the White House. I was invited to participate in Project Literacy U.S., commonly known as PLUS. Former First Lady Barbara Bush has been actively involved in the fight against illiteracy. With her encouragement, I was approved to serve on the National Literacy Board, an emerging literate amid a group of advanced degrees and prestigious titles.

Johnny Corcoran can read now, but it took me 48 years to get this far. My desire is to encourage parents and teachers not to overlook children's problems. Don't force your students to face the fear and emotional trauma that pushes them into cheating.

Educational sophistication has transformed the former Dumb Row into differentiated reading groups, but students know who are bluebirds and who are buzzards. Many youngsters, and far too many adults, hopelessly sit in a prison of illiteracy. Teachers on all grade levels must recognize these prisoners and give them the tools of phonemic awareness and explicit phonemic awareness to break out of their cells.

"Teaching children and adults to read, write, and comprehend is not only our essential duty and investment in America's future; it is also an act of love."

RedBedroom wrote:I don't think literacy is an indicator of intelligence. The adaption skills they have must be amazing. To fake it into adulthood is a major thing.

But, I still believe that day to day has to be so incredibly hard.

Neither do I. Literacy is merely a skill that can be taught. Like other skills, how well someones becomes at it largely depends on how well that continue to practice is.