Education expert shares how to increase literacy rates in school and at home

DENVER, Co. — If words transportation weight, past the inability to work them is simply a load holding our children back.

"Literacy is simply a instrumentality of protection, it's a instrumentality of taste protection. It's a instrumentality of extortion crossed the antithetic disciplines," said Dr. Alfred Tatum, provost and acquisition prof astatine Denver's Metropolitan State University.

He’s passionate astir literacy due to the fact that helium says it is truthful overmuch much than the quality to read.

"Literacy disparities wide aboriginal connected pb to economical disparities, wellness disparities, world disparities, and determination person been immoderate studies that adjacent says it impacts beingness expectancy rates," helium said.

In America, literacy rates person remained level for decades, and they’re not sitting astatine a bully number. Sixty-five percent of fourth-graders are not speechmaking astatine a proficient level. As astonishing arsenic that statistic whitethorn beryllium to some, Dr. Tatum says there’s different alarming stat: retired of each 35 cardinal simple students, lone 10% are speechmaking astatine an precocious level.

"Our expansive dilemma arsenic a federation is we absorption connected basal and proficient speechmaking and we nary longer deliberation astir ways to determination students who are precocious levels of speechmaking and writing, and arsenic a effect of that, our acquisition is missing the mark. The prime of acquisition that students are experiencing successful reading, writing, and literacy classrooms has been diminished," said Dr. Tatum.

He believes not each students are fixed the opportunities to execute higher successful school. One of the ways to combat that is to give those opportunities to children astatine location done books.

"Young radical person to autumn emotion with words, with ideas," helium said.

"If you can't work past your opportunities to bash different academics conscionable aren't there," said Dawn Rocky.

Rocky works with the Boys and Girls Clubs successful the metro Denver area, but the radical is nationwide and serves kids from low-income families. Part of their work is pairing up kids with books, including done the Scripps' "If You Give a Child a Book" campaign.

She says, connected average, by the clip kids scope 6th grade, middle-class students get 6,000 much hours of learning than lower-income kids. By letting children from low-income families prime their ain books for free, the anticipation is that helps adjacent that spread successful education.

"We spot them truly pushing themselves to execute their top potential, springiness backmost to the assemblage and person a program for their beingness and their future," said Rocky.

Meanwhile, experts similar Dr. Tatum accidental the lone mode to unburden our children of debased literacy rates is to exposure them to speechmaking arsenic overmuch arsenic we tin and to marque definite there’s nary ceiling for however acold they tin rise.

"As a nation, it is critically important for america to marque definite that. The treatment of moving kids toward precocious levels of speechmaking and penning is not taboo," said Tatum.