Literacy Info and Statistics

Literacy Defined

Literacy is a continuum of skills on which people have different levels of ability. Low literacy skills occur among people from all walks of life, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or income level.

The National Literacy Act of 1991 defines literacy as an individual’s ability to read, write and speak English, compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job and in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.
A wide range of experts,including the National Governors’ Association, agree that today’s economy and society require literacy skills at Level 3 or higher, measured on a five-point scale.

Functioning below Level 3, or below about a 6th grade reading level, means having difficulty reading such things as:
•ATM screens
•Street signs or following a map or bus schedule
•The newspaper
•Disease prevention information or outpatient care instructions
•The dosage or precautions on medicine bottles
•Notices sent home from a child’s school
•Voting machine instructions or a ballot
•Job applications

The State of Literacy

More than half of the adults in many of Connecticut’s cities function at the two lowest levels of literacy. In the city of Hartford, 73% of adults are functionally illiterate; in New Haven, 57%; in New London, 50%; and in Bridgeport, 68%; in Waterbury, 56%.

• Language development begins at birth and is a building block to literacy.  Studies show that children from middle-income families begin kindergarten with a vocabulary of between 20,000-30,000 words; children from lower-income families start school with about 5,000 words.
• Low literacy in children is associated with school failure, teenage pregnancy juvenile delinquency and poverty.
 

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