Are You Literate or Illiterate?

Hey, this is a funny story!…It seems that about one-third of the people living in Washington D.C., the US capital, are ‘functionally illiterate’, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.

And I once thought that illiteracy was associated with developing countries!!!

But wait a minute. What is the definition of illiteracy?…The ‘adults are considered functionally illiterate if they have trouble doing such things as comprehending bus schedules, reading maps and filling out job applications,’ says a study.

Well I must be an illiterate person because I always had trouble comprehending bus schedules and filling job applications!!!

I would have taken this story as a joke until I read that “the study by the State Education Agency, a quasi-governmental office created by the U.S. Department of Education to distribute federal funds for literacy services, was ordered by Mayor Anthony A. Williams in 2003 as part of his four-year, $4 million adult literacy initiative.”

Read on even if you are literate or illiterate…