Reading as a public health issue

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• Estimates are that 20% of the adult population or 35 million people have serious difficulties with common everyday reading tasks
• And another 10% have only marginal functional literacy

Readability levels (grade equivalent)

Reading material	Grade level
Leading magazines	12-13
Newspaper articles	9-12
Best sellers	6-9
Apartment leases	>12
Insurance policies	>12
Tax forms & directions	8#
Drivers license manual	6
Medication labels	10

# Do you really believe this?

• Contact lens care instructions
• VT instruction sheets
• Medication warning labels, package inserts
• Recall letters
• Office promotional materials

• faulty word identification and recognition
  • ineffectual visual analysis of words (i.e. can't use visual perceptual information processing skills (e.g. discrimination) to immediately visually identify a word)
  • limited knowledge of phonics (i.e. can't decode words by using phonics; when a new word is encountered phonetic analysis is used to assist with pronunciation and identification of the word)
  • insufficient sight word vocabulary (i.e. the immediate recognition of word)
  • excessive locational errors (initial, middle, or ending parts of words)

   

• inappropriate directional attack (i.e. left-to-right)
  • orientational confusion with words
  • word transpositions (i.e. reading words in the wrong order)
  • faulty eye movements (i.e. making backward or right-to-left movements)

   

• deficiencies in basic comprehension abilities 
  • limited word meaning awareness (i.e. doesn't know the meaning of words; therefore, comprehension can suffer)
  • lack of paragraph or section organization (i.e. unable to develop an understanding of what is read in paragraph sized units)
  • ineffective ability to evaluate or interpret what is read (i.e. bringing experience and background to the reading activity)

   

• deficiencies in basic study skills 
  • inadequacies in using maps, graphs, tables
  • limitations in organizing materials to read or for studying

   

• deficiencies in rate of reading with comprehension 
  • insufficient sight word vocabulary
  • insufficient vocabulary knowledge
  • overanalytical reading (i.e. reads word-by-word; tries to decode every word phonetically not using the faster visual processing)
  • insufficient use of context cues (i.e. doesn't apply previous knowledge or background to the subject matter being read)
  • subvocalizations (i.e. when reading "silently" says the words out loud in a very soft voice to hear the words to assist word recognition)