If you can read this, then you’re a reader.
Can you imagine not being able to read? Truly, can you imagine what your life would be like, if you could not even read the words of your own language? My mind is boggled by the thought.
Can you remember your first book? How old were you? What was the book’s title? I believe that I was around five years old when I got my first book. I believe that mine was The Little Engine that Could
Do you remember how important that first book was to you? Did you have a special place for it at home? Did you take it with you everywhere? How many times did you re-read it or have it re-read to you?
I am sure that I must have gone through my first book scores of times. It became my reference point to the world. It became the focus of my imagination each time that I sat or lay down with it. It became my initial path toward reading.
Now, can you imagine never getting a first book, or not getting your first book until much later in life? What a depressing thought that is!
If you had never learned to read or write, …
- How would you be earning a living today?
- Who would your friends be?
- Would you have met your mate?
- How would you cover up your illiteracy?
- How would you know which medicine to take?
- How could you text-message or email someone?
- Whom would you trust?
- Would you skip movies with subtitles?
- How would you know about sales discounts?
- Would your life revolve around radio and TV?
- How would you make sense of tabloids or National Geographic?
- Which product would you buy, if you could not read labels?
- Would you get into high-interest debt instead of no debt
- Whom would you ask to search the Web for you?
- Would you have an attorney review everything that you sign?
- How would you remind yourself about appointments or tasks?
- Could you even read a clock or a calendar?
- Would you recognize an Amber Alert on a highway sign?
- How would you protect your children from poisons?
- Would license plates be meaningless for reporting crimes?
- Would all mail be junk mail?
- Would you always order “today’s special” at restaurants?
- What would you do with greeting cards received in the mail?
- What types of greeting cards, if any, would you mail to others?
- How would you address an envelope?
- Would you never write checks?
- Would you pay all utility bills with cash at the local supermarket?
- Would you use a wireless-transfer shop to send money to others?
- How would you know that you have a ticket for the correct event?
- How would you know where to go to board your airplane?
- How would know which bus to board to take you to your destination?
- Would you consume sugary drinks that you thought were no-calorie?
- Would you ask others to make telephone calls for you?
- When would you know that you mis-set your oven’s digital thermostat?
- Would you use presidents’ faces to distinguish 1 from20 or $100?
- Would your VCR always blink 12:00, even if you wanted to fix it?
- Would you ask one neighbor to translate another neighbor’s note?
- How would you know that a casino or lottery payout was correct?
- Would you be able to dispute a wireless telephone bill?
- Whom would you ask to give your name badge to you at a meeting?
- Would you fully memorize all of your speeches?
- How would you know what’s in your home-inspection report?
- How would you know what’s in your insurance policies?
- Whom would you ask to read a building directory at an elevator?
Are you getting the picture? Are you hearing what I hear? Are you feeling this?
Let’s flip this on its head. Can you imagine being surrounded by people who cannot read or write, or read or write well, …
- As your supervisors?
- In line at the local supermarket?
- At your shop?
- At a public swimming pool?
- In your work environment?
- Repairing your home?
- Repairing your car?
- Installing or repairing your utilities?
- Consuming your goods or services?
- Answering your 411 call?
- Answering your 911 call?
- On your city council?
- In your state legislature?
- As your national politicians?
- Providing disaster relief to you?
- Processing your governmental forms?
- Delivering your mail?
- Showing up at your burning or burglarized home?
- Giving you checks?
- Processing your deposited checks?
- Counting the change owed to you during a purchase?
- Processing your bill payments?
- Telling you what’s in your religion’s sacred books?
- Separating your “launder” vs. “dry clean” items at your dry cleaner?
- Taking your order at a very busy restaurant?
- Booking your travel?
- Refilling the underground tanks at your gas station?
- Certifying your gas-station pumps?
- Accounting for everything used during your surgery?
- Filling your medical prescriptions?
- Creating the maps in your GPS unit or sold at bookstores?
- Voting in the booths next to you?
- Sitting in adjacent cars at an intersection with special hazard signs?
- Being the economic force of your nation for years to come?
Would you feel as if you had entered The Twilight Zone
First Book is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 with one mission:
To give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.
Here are some statistics that I found at FirstBook.org:
- On average, there is only one age-appropriate book for every 300 children in low-income neighborhoods in the U.S., whereas the ratio in middle-income neighborhoods is thirteen such books for every child.
— That’s a disparity of 3,900 to one!
- On average, there are no age-appropriate books in over 80% of pre-school and after-school programs serving children from low-income families in the U.S.
- On average, exposure to one-on-one reading time is only twenty-five hours for children from low-income families, versus 1,000 to 1,700 hours for children from middle-class families.
— That’s a disparity of up to 68 to one.
What, you might ask, is the impact of this? Again, citing statistics published at FirstBook.org:
- Percent of U.S. adults who live in poverty, based on level of literacy proficiency:
- 43% for those at lowest proficiency;
- 4% for those at strong proficiency.
- Much of U.S. businesses’ annual $60 billion spending on employee training is for remedial reading, writing, and arithmetic.
- U.S. health-care costs are four times as high for individuals with lowest literacy skills as they are for individuals with high-level literacy skills.
- Reading problems plague eighty-five percent of juvenile offenders.
- Fifty percent of U.S. state and federal adult prisoners cannot read or write.
The above statistics can be depressing, until you look at these facts:
- Reading scores are significantly correlated with the number of books in the home.
- Reading scores increase as more types of reading materials are added to the home.
- Reading scores increase as students do more reading at home.
The good news: First Book partners with companies, groups and individuals to put brand-new, age-appropriate books in the hands of children most at risk of becoming low-literacy-level adults.
There are many ways to support the First Book cause:
- A $2.50 donation puts one such book in the hands of one such child.
- Shop at the First Book shop, where proceeds help to buy more books.
- Join or start a local advisory board.
- Volunteer at a book distribution.
- And more …
Our future depends on our literacy! Please visit the “Get Involved” section of FirstBook.org to learn how you can change our future for the better.