- Worldwide, 12% or 775 million adults—are considered functionally illiterate
- 70% of America’s inmates can’t read past a 4th grade level
- 90% of high school dropouts are on welfare
- 2/3 of the world’s lowest literate adults are women.
- 1 in 4 kids in America grow up without learning how to read
- Black students in the US are expelled at 3 times the rate of white students
- Black students make up 16% of US school enrollment and make up 32% of students who get in-school suspensions, 42% of students who get multiple out-of-school suspensions and 34% of students who are expelled
- ½ of the global low-literate population are in the regions of South and West Asia
- Kids who don’t learn to read are 17% of the population and are 50% of the special education population.
- A student who finishes 2nd grade without being able to read has a 1 in 4 chance of reading at grade level by the end of elementary school.
- 35% of kids with reading disabilities drop out of school, a rate twice that of their classmates.
- 25% of adults in this country lack the basis literacy skills required for a typical job.
- 50% of juvenile delinquents manifest some kind of learning disability, primarily in the area of reading.
Between 1984 and 1996 the percentage of 12th grade students reporting that they “never” or “hardly ever” read for fun increased from 9% to 16%
A poll of middle and high school students commissioned by the National Education Association found that 70% of middle school students read more than 10 books a year, compared to 49% of high school students
http://www.nea.org/grants/facts-about-childrens-literacy.html
According to the 2013 OECD PIAAC survey: 80% of adults(ages 16-65) with the highest literacy levels were employed, versus 57% at lowest literacy levels
http://abclifeliteracy.ca/workplace-literacy-facts
In 2011, the CDC reported that the percentage of kids in the US who have ever been diagnosed with ADHD’s now 9.5%. Boys are diagnosed 2-3 times as often as girls.
30% of kids and 25-40% of adults with ADHD have a co-existing anxiety disorder
http://www.adhdawarenessmonth.org/adhd-facts/
- 20% of school-aged kids in the US are dyslexic
- 50% of NASA employees are dyslexic
- 40 million American Adults are dyslexic and 2 million know it
70-85% of kids who are placed in special education for learning disabilities are dyslexic
40% of people with dyslexia have ADHD and those with dyslexia use 5 times more energy to complete mental tasks.
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-dyslexia
Low literacy’s effects cost the US $225 billion a year in non-productivity in the workforce, crime and loss of tax revenue due to unemployment
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (2003), 75% of America’s state prison inmates, 59% of federal inmates and 69% of jail inmates didn’t complete high school.
http://www.fightilliteracy.org/literacy-facts/
