Why Literacy is Important: Summarized

Here is a summary of the information found on the “Why Literacy is Important” page:

• We encounter literacy everyday:

  • Driving: reading signs, following directions, taking driver’s tests.

  • Communication: texting, emailing, and in general, speaking with other people.

  • Food: reading food labels, reading a restaurant menu, reading recipes.

  • Health: medicine instructions, deciphering insurance forms.

  • Politics: staying informed on the news, voting.

  • Entertainment: books, movies and TV shows (scripts), podcasts, music (lyrics).

• Literacy proficiency benefits the economy.

  • The Barbara Bush Foundation did a study and found that “the average annual income of adults who read at the equivalent of a sixth-grade level is $63,000” and those “at the lowest levels of literacy…earn just $34,000 on average.”

  • If all adults read at a sixth-grade level, the country would earn an additional $2.2 trillion in annual income.

• Literacy helps build empathy.

  • Author John Green says that reading “shrinks the empathy gap.”

  • Reading offers new perspectives.

  • The more we read, the more we engage with other people’s thoughts and beliefs.