The Read and Write Stuff

There are dozens of locations across Orange County where people unable to read can get help. Individually or in groups, thousands of people are benefiting from volunteers assisting the community by promoting literacy.

One encouraging aspect of the literacy programs has been the emergence of those now able to recognize the contents of books, magazines and newspapers as proselytizers for the movement.

Some longtime literacy advocates worried that students would form a new movement and break away from the organizations that taught them to read. Funding is as scarce for reading programs as for other things these days, and the worry was that a competing movement would divide support.

But so far that has not happened, and the former students have proved effective in helping to raise funds for the groups that aided them. That is a sensible recognition that a program that works should be continued. And the new acolytes can have a positive impact. What is more stirring than a living, preaching example of a program’s success? The testimony can help pry open the pocketbook.

The organization READ/Orange County, which operates literacy programs at county libraries, estimates that 450,000 adults in the county lack elementary reading skills. That is a large number for a county with so many wealthy and well-educated residents. But it is not out of line with national figures.

The U.S. Education Department found after a 1993 survey that about 20% of the national population had only rudimentary reading and writing skills. Most so classified could find key facts in a newspaper article but could not draft a letter describing an error on a bill.

Orange County’s city and county libraries and the community colleges deserve credit for their literacy programs. So do volunteers who give their time to help teach. As society becomes more complex, the need for literacy increases. Unfortunately, as schools become strapped for funds and overcrowded, the chances for marginal readers to obtain high school diplomas they can barely decipher decrease. Gov. Pete Wilson’s program to reduce class sizes in early elementary school grades is intended to improve reading and math scores, clearly a worthwhile goal.

In Huntington Beach and Westminster, in San Juan Capistrano and Mission Viejo, adults in their 40s and 50s are putting aside decades of denial and tackling the difficult task of learning to read. Jobs and families demand most of their waking hours, but they recognize the importance of being literate. Some go on to speak out for the programs that taught them to read, making an extra contribution. All serve as examples that age is no barrier to knowledge.