Literacy Statistics and Reading Facts*

• Estimates indicate that at least 20 million of the nation's 53 million school-age children are poor readers - about two out of five children.
  —National Institutes of Health
  
  
• If a child is a poor reader at the end of first grade, there is an almost 90% probability that the child will be a poor reader at the end of fourth grade.
  —The Public Library Association
  
  
• Three-quarters of students who are poor readers in third grade will remain poor readers in high school.
  —Yale University
  
  
• Approximately one-third of all poorly performing fourth graders have college-educated parents.
  —National Assessment of Educational Progress
  
  
• Nearly 40% of fourth graders have not mastered basic reading skills. It's nearly 60% in California, and almost half of these children live with college-educated parents.
  —Council for Basic Education
  
  
• Experts say about 5% of the nation's children learn to read with ease, almost intuitively. An additional 20% to 30% learn to read with relative ease once they begin some kind of formal instruction. However, the bulk of children (about 60%) have difficulty.
  —Council for Basic Education
  
  
• Reading difficulty is a problem that extends across socioeconomic strata-affluence is no guarantee of reading success.
  —American Federation of Teachers
  
  
• Learning to read is a crucial step in children's education because those who fare poorly in the early grades are unlikely to catch up with their more skilled classmates.
  —Scientific American, March 2002
  
  
• 60% of our nation's children experience formidable challenges learning to read, and for at least 20-30%, learning to read is one of the most difficult tasks they will confront in school.
  —National Institute of Child Health & Human Development
  
  
• For 90-95% of poor readers, prevention and early intervention programs that combine instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, reading fluency, and reading comprehension can increase reading skills to average reading levels.
  —National Institute of Child Health & Human Development
  
  
• At least 50% of the unemployed are functionally illiterate.
  —U.S. Department of Labor
  
  
• 44% of all American adults do not read one book in the course of a year.
  —U.S. Department of Education
  
  
• The education of the parent is the single greatest predictor of whether a child will be raised in poverty.
  —US. Dept. of Health & Human Services
  
  
• Youngsters whose parents are functionally illiterate are twice as likely as their peers to be functionally illiterate themselves.
  —National Assessment of Education Progress

Some more startling statistics…

• 85% of juvenile offenders are illiterate.
  
  
• The number of functionally illiterate adults corresponds to the number of people living in poverty (roughly 33 million).
  
  
• Almost half the students living in urban areas cannot read at a basic level.
  
  

*Source: US Department of Education; The Literacy Council