Colleagues: Lucille Cuttler raises an interesting issue. She notes that 20
percent-one out of five-have a learning difference. Then she goes on to
say, The kid struggling in 4th grade becomes the illiterate adult. This
seems to imply that some 20 percent of adults grow up to become illiterate
adults. But the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) of 1993 reported that
only about 5 percent of adults surveyed read so poorly that they could not
take the test, and half of these were non-English speaking. The NALS also
reported that some 95 percent of adults said they read well or very well.
Similarly, on the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) of 1993 some
95 percent of adults said their reading skills met their daily needs and
their needs at work. Of course there are always problems in accepting such
self-reports, for instance the desire to not appear too unskilled and so
one may overstate his or her skills. But we accept other self-reports, such
as adults who report they feel more confident after taking a literacy
course, or they report reading various things (newspapers, books, forms,
etc.), so it seems that many adult educators accept self-perceptions as
having some validity.

All this seems to raise problems about understanding what happens to 4th
grade children with learning differences, particularly those relating to
learning to read, when they grow up.

Tom Sticht