BEING unable to read and write in our society is akin to being unable to trap animals or catch fish in a society that depends on hunting and fishing for its livelihood: your life chances are seriously diminished.
Imagine how difficult even everyday things such as shopping, child rearing or catching a bus would be if you couldn't read or write. You'd be severely limited in the type of jobs you could do and promotion would be out of the question. Even your social life would be impaired - you'd be reluctant to join friends taking night classes or to take positions of responsibility in clubs and societies.
A 1995 OECD survey shows that more than 20 per cent of adults in some of the world's richest countries have only rudimentary literacy skills. In Ireland the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) estimates that upwards of 100,000 adults are in serious need of help to address their literacy problems.
In addition, says NALA's assistant director, Rosamond Phillips, there are many more people who need help in improving their reading, writing and spelling in order to participate more fully in a society which requires increasingly complex literacy skills. According to the OECD survey, people with the lowest literacy skills are between four and 12 times more likely to be unemployed than people with high literacy skills.
A 1996 ESRI study of school leavers between 1993 and 1995 found that 7 per cent of young people leaving school do so with very poor educational attainments. The literacy skills of most of these youngsters are likely to be extremely poor, says Phillips.
The literacy performance of Irish nine year olds is only just above the international average. So says a survey of 32 countries carried out in 1990 and 1991 - the Irish children were out performed by their peers in Finland, the United States, Sweden, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Iceland.
ACCORDING to NALA, people leave school with inadequate literacy skills for a variety of reasons - social, economic, educational and personal. Our education system is clearly failing many young people, but good teachers can have a very positive effect on their students' literacy skills.
However, experts say, parents play the greatest role in encouraging literacy in children. Youngsters are more likely to acquire good literacy skills in households where books are venerated, where children are encouraged to read and where parents themselves visibly enjoy reading.
In homes where reading skills are considered irrelevant and children never see a book, they are less likely to learn to read and write easily. "It's important that children have access to lots of books," says Lee McCurtain, a senior psychologist with the Department of Education. "Parents should be prepared to look at and discuss them with their children rather than simply spending time decoding the words." The books should be colourful and attractive.
Picture books can play a huge role in encouraging literacy skills in children. "We give picture books to children at an early age, but at the back of our minds we believe that they are really something the children should be weaned off as soon as possible," says Fintan O'Shea, lecturer in remedial education at the Church of Ireland Training College of Education in Dublin. "To limit reading to text is a very narrow vision. Children need to be taught to read images. A lot of what you want children to do with picture books is the baseline for them be, coming competent readers later on.
Reading a picture book must be a shared experience, O'Shea says. "Discussion about the book is important." So too is taking time over a book. "When children have finished a book, we tend to push them on to the next one. But they need time to enjoy what they have read and to have a favourite book. It's good to let them show off what they can do and re read books they know they are capable of reading."
Many children are turned off reading because they associate it with a school chore. "It's up to parents to give the other view of reading - that it's fun."
Vocabulary and language are vital factors in learning to read. Children with poor language ability or limited vocabulary find it difficult to learn to read and write. "You can't expect children to read language in books if they themselves don't understand that language," says Marie Therese Wallnutt, who teaches junior and senior infants at Edmonstown National School, Co Dublin.
According to Wallnutt, play is vital for language development. Prereading skills include sorting and matching shapes, construction and pattern making with pegs and beads. "Children don't develop at the same rate and they won't read at the same time," she says. "You have to wait until they are ready to read."
At Edmonstown there are no formal reading classes in junior infants. However, children are introduced to books at an early stage and use the well stocked class library on a regular basis. "In pre reading we encourage and nurture an awareness of books. I read the new books aloud to introduce the children to the characters and we also have individual reading time with each child."
CHILDREN with low self esteem can find it difficult to learn to read and write, according to Lee McCurtain. Failure to learn contributes to their diminished self images. "Students who fail to acquire the mechanics of reading can become depressed, angry or insecure," she says. "A lot of children pretend that reading is unimportant, or they become over anxious, get a block or will only read if they're forced.
The development of self esteem is vital for these children, she says. Children who are experiencing difficulties with reading must be made to feel good in school. Reading clubs and drama societies are ideal vehicles for this. Similarly, group reading and predicting a story's development are ideal ways to promote active involvement in reading and whet young appetites for more.
According to Mark Morgan and Michael Martin, who evaluated the Irish section of the international literacy survey, Irish children spend less time reading for pleasure than do children from other countries, yet such reading is a valuable way of enhancing reading achievement and expanding vocabulary.
According to Morgan and Martin, while Irish children do relatively well on basic reading skills, they perform less well on tests of critical thinking, reasoning and higher order abilities. Compared with other countries, they say, our system places a low level of emphasis on these skills.
The literacy survey also cites low levels of professional reading by Irish teachers compared with their international counterparts. This fact, say Morgan and Martin, "is of major concern... Teachers who read more tend to teach in a style that suggests that reading is a constructive and active process. . . They seem to teach in a way which is more child centred than do those teachers who read rather less."
According to Ann Hughes of the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Difficulties, 4 per cent of the population has specific learning difficulties (SLD). These difficulties include dyslexia, a difficulty with written language; dysgraphia, a difficulty with handwriting; dysorthography, a difficulty with spelling, and dyscalculai, a difficulty with maths. Hughes says that recent research shows that these problems are genetic in origin. "The pathways connecting the centres of the brain are wired differently in people with specific learning difficulties. It's a learning difference," she says. "It's important to realise that SLD runs across the spectrum."
A very bright child may have only average literacy skills and not be achieving her potential, she points out. Parents who suspect that a child may have a problem are advised to discuss the matter with the school, which may advise professional assessment.
Mary Colfer, an educational consultant specialising in reading difficulties, believes it is vital that children have well developed manipulative skills before they start school. "I often say that it would be far better if parents taught their children to tie their shoelaces, catch a ball and walk a straight line rather than teaching them the alphabet before they start school."
