Noah Webster's American Spelling Book (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Hard for me to argue with those figures.

  JL

Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Tom Zurinskas
Subject: Re: Noah Webster's American Spelling Book (UNCLASSIFIED)
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A lot depends on what "functional illiteracy" is. But checking my files on USA literacy, I have below.

http://www.educationnews.org/An_Interview_with_Bob_Cleckler.htm
An Interview with Bob Cleckler: About Our Literacy Crisis
Thursday, December 15, 2005
The most extensive study of adult illiteracy ever commissioned by the U.S. government was a five-year, $14 million study involving lengthy interviews of 26,700 adults, statistically balanced for age, sex, ethnicity, and location-whether urban, suburban, or rural-in several states across the U.S. The study proved that more than 92 million people (more than 47% of U.S. adults) cannot read and write well enough to hold an above-poverty-level-wage job. This study also proved that more than 40% of employees in U.S. businesses are functionally illiterate.

The National Reading Panel in 2000 found that about 70% of minority fourth graders were sub-par readers. The Nellie Mae Education foundation found in 2002 that “About 41% of all adults in New England lack the skills they need to succeed in today's knowledge-based society.” See http://www.jff.org/pressreleases/nelliemae.html.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.

> Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:26:20 -0500
> From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL
> Subject: Re: Noah Webster's American Spelling Book (UNCLASSIFIED)
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
> Subject: Re: Noah Webster's American Spelling Book (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
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>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society
>> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas
>> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 1:48 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Noah Webster's American Spelling Book
>>
>
>>
>> Synthetic phonics is going back to this form of phonetics
>> first teaching. It works. It was said in the late 1800's
>> that maybe 4 in 1,000 couldn't read. Now its about 100 times that.
>>
>
>
> You think 400 people out of a 1000 can't read? You're kidding, right?
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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