Hello Family,
I hope all is well in the new year for everyone….
During last summer while attending the SOS Conference and March, I had the pleasure of meeting Ruby Veridiano; Lit Corps and Social Media Ambassador for an organization called Lit World. She was a featured speaker at a conference session I attended on education and it’s role in world literacy. I felt an instant connection with Ruby. Her warm and personable demeanor made it very easy for me to engage in conversations going on during our conference session. I admired her passion and drive as she discussed her role in Girls LitClubs in NYC. I was just really impressed with her and the organization she represents. (oh, and not to mention; too, she told me she is a native of one of my favorite cities on the west coast (shout out to Oakland, CA) (smile) Anyway, Ruby and I became instant friends….
A few weeks ago, Ruby emailed me to ask if I’d like to help her spread the word about a special day coming up on March 7th, 2012 – World Read Aloud Day! Of course, I jumped at the chance.
Did You Know?
(Source: http://www.proliteracy.org)
Defined, literacy is the ability to read, write, compute and use technology at a level that enables an individual to reach his or her full potential as a human being.
Now, you know that usually, I don’t like giving you a bunch of stats… however, when I was preparing this post, I ran across these and was amazed at the numbers. They are truly staggering. Take a look for yourself:
- Over 700 million adults, approximately 16 % of the world’s population have only basic or below basic literacy levels in their native language.
- Two-thirds of those with the lowest levels of literacy are women.
- In the U.S., 63 million adults (roughly 29% of the country’s adult population (those over the age of 16) do not read well enough to understand a newspaper story written at the eighth grade level.
- 43 % of adults with the lowest literacy rates in the United States live in poverty.
- The United States ranks fifth on adult literacy skills when compared to other industrialized countries.
In short, adult low literacy can be connected to almost every socio-economic issue in the United States; including (but not limited to):
- 65% of all state and federal correction inmates can be classified as low literate.
- Low health literacy costs between $106 billion and $236 billion each year in the United States alone. (77 million Americans have only and 2-in-3 chance of correctly reading an over-the-counter drug label or understanding their child’s vaccination chart.)
- Low literacy’s effects cost the U.S. $225 billion or more each year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment.
- Globally, illiteracy can be linked to:
o Gender abuse
o Extreme poverty
o High infant mortality and the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria, and other preventable infectious diseases.
World Read Aloud Day
Therefore, I am happy to join in the cause and support Lit World’s World Read Aloud Day; being held on March 7, 2012, globally. I will be participating in a World Read Aloud Day event at Nia’s school as well as live tweeting. The thing that also really excites me is Lit World’s commitment to using technology which of course leads to an increase in global technology literacy as well! Folks, everywhere will be using Skype, Twitter, Face Book, U Stream and You Tube and other social media platforms to connect and engage. If you represent a group of students who would like to live chat with an author; or if you are an author that would like to live chat with students, Lit World will provide the platform for you. All you have to do is sign up.
Family, please join me on March 7th for this awesome event. Here is an opportunity to do something… big or small, to truly change the life of children and help put an end to global illiteracy in our life time.
Here is a link to get you started…. http://litworld.org/worldreadaloudday/
Thanks! I’ll talk to you later
