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Child Item

Do you know anyone who is illiterate?

stmol32

A funny thing happened the other day.

I was queuing at an ATM and there was a woman ahead of me aged 60's maybe a young 70's taking ages (I wasn't moaning because I'm not an asshead but I did notice she was taking a while).

She looked behind and called me up to help her because "shure I can't figure out them computer talk" or words to that effect - proper northside Dublin brogue like me and mine.

I work in IT and I immediately go into teacher mode whenever someone gives me that sort of cue so I started telling her what each screen was saying and which buttons to press.

I should also say it was an enormous amount of trust this lady placed in me not to rob her.

I explained what the ATM was asking and which button to press and each time she just said "yeah that's grand".

It was only after she went I realised maybe she wasn't not IT savvy (ATMs have been around a fair few years) but actually that's her way of coping as a non reader in a world of printed words.

I didn't register this until I saw the ads on telly offering services for people who need to improve their reading.

I'm presuming everyone on boards knows how to read and write (usually quite badly

) but I'm asking how common is it for people to have such poor reading skills that they need help?

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Citygirl1

JupiterKid wrote: »

But bank ATMs have been around for over 30 years now - it doesn't even require a basic knowledge of IT to operate one.

I have both an aunt and an uncle (my Mum's sister and brother), who have neither of them ever owned an ATM card. I was amazed when I first realised this. It must be so tedious having to queue up in the local bank branch whenever they want to lodge or withdraw money, never having access to cash at the weekend, or being able to use a laser card.

They are both country people, in their seventies, and I guess, just never got comfortable with the idea. Edit: Both would be perfectly literate, but many older people do find any type of "technology" intimidating.

I think the OP's question about illiteracy is interesting. However, in the case of the woman he met, it is quite likely she was just not comfortable with using the ATM machine, afraid of making a mistake, or as suggested, she may have had poor eyesight.

323

Was surprised when I realized a few people I had known for years were almost or totally illiterate, just didn't recognize it.
Know at least two , mid 40's and three in mid 50's
Seems many hide it quite well, another I know around 60 just recently learned to read, who pointed out the behavior of the others to me.

Ihatecuddles-old

I know a man who was accused of a pretty serious crime in the early 90's. He wasnt tried in court because he couldn't read of write, couldn't sign his own name.

He was a traveller so maybe that's why he never learned, he worked from a young age instead of going to school.

I find that astonishing, wasn't that long ago and these days that would never be let happen.

Wibbs

Ihatecuddles wrote: »

I find that astonishing, wasn't that long ago and these days that would never be let happen.

Oh you reckon? As I said earlier;

Wibbs wrote: »

Some recent report or other found that today one in four school leaving boys are functionally illiterate. Link warning it's a link to a .PDF not a webpage.

Its a bloody scandal TBH. Add in other serious failures in our education system(lack of science uptake/dodgy numeracy skills/drop in standards of university degrees) and we don't look good on the international stage and this will impact us more and more.

Ihatecuddles-old

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh you reckon? As I said earlier;

Sorry I meant that him not being tried in court because he was illiterate would never happen these days.

admiralofthefleet

worked with a fella from rathmines who couldnt read or write, he was more embarrased about people knowing than the actual problem itself

Odysseus

I see it a bit in work, age range from 20-50. I'm always very careful the odd time I have to get a client to read or sign a document.

Itwasntme.

Wibbs wrote: »

Some recent report or other found that today one in four school leaving boys are functionally illiterate.

Its a bloody scandal TBH. Add in other serious failures in our education system(lack of science uptake/dodgy numeracy skills/drop in standards of university degrees) and we don't look good on the international stage and this will impact us more and more.

Here is a news article on the 1 in 4 stats that Wibbs talks about. We were discussing literacy and numeracy in class a few weeks ago and one of my classmates who had worked with the people who conducted the literacy and numeracy census in conjunction with the OECD said that the actual findings were worse than was reported and that the figures were changed for political reasons.

spurious

Probably 70% or more of the parents of the children I teach are illiterate or reading at a very basic level.

fall

There are children in this country starting secondary school who have a reading age of between six and eight. The text books are often at a reading age of fifteen. They never catch up in spite of massive efforts being made by schools to help them. Absenteeism and zero input from home are huge factors. Any progress made is lost when they miss school as they regress quickly. Heartbreaking.

up for anything

A lot of children in the this country when they should have left primary and gone onto secondary instead spent the the next three years in 6th class marking time until they could leave. Some were illiterate and some just had very poor reading and writing skills. There were four of these children, all boys, in the primary school I went to for 6th class.

The last person I knew of that left school illiterate was in the late 90s/early 2000s. He was in a small country school, perhaps 30 in the school. When he got to leaving 6th class it was discovered he was unable to read and had no writing skills - how this happened between his teacher (who'd taught him for perhaps the last three years) and his family I don't know except that he'd become expert in hiding the fact. He spent a few years in 6th class until he could leave. He then wanted to enter a trade but couldn't do it because he didn't have the literacy skills for the necessary FAS course so ended up getting grinds from the teacher who had spent 3 years failing to spot his difficulties. She got paid again to teach him what she should have taught him already.

Chinasea

According to the the most recent study on literacy conducted by the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in 1997 it was found that Ireland had the worst literacy rates among the European countries examined.

At the time of this survey, 80% of students in Ireland completed their education to Leaving Certificate (or equivalent), with the literacy problem among older age groups being compounded by a history of relatively low educational attainment and engagement with the education system. According to the Department of Education, 33% of the Irish population over 25 years of age had received an education no higher than Junior Cert level. Among 17 to 25 year this figure was 17%, and 44% among 55 to 65 year olds.

Needless to say following on from this report a massive shift in how we, as a nation, view education was concluded a a vital component in righting this gap, however, it was established that learning can no longer be confined solely to the classroom and must be seen as a holistic endeavor encouraged and facilitated by everyone within the child's environment. Parental involvement is essential to reducing Ireland's high level of illiteracy and to ensure that every child receives a full education enabling them to partake wholly in the future of our society.

Those gaps are growing even bigger imo as we apathetically stand by.

Mr. Nice

Ihatecuddles wrote: »

I know a man who was accused of a pretty serious crime in the early 90's. He wasnt tried in court because he couldn't read of write, couldn't sign his own name.

I find that astonishing, wasn't that long ago and these days that would never be let happen.

I find that astonishing too, and also unbelievable.
What a great way to get away with a serious crime scot-free :rolleyes:

Geri Male

stmol32 wrote: »

I was queuing at an ATM and there was a woman ahead of me aged 60's maybe a young 70's taking ages (I wasn't moaning because I'm not an asshead but I did notice she was taking a while).

Why do you assume that anyone who'd complain or moan about it would be an "asshead"?

fasttalkerchat

Had a cop take a statement from me who was almost illiterate. I had to spell out the most simple of words and had to bite my tongue to avoid offending him. That one shocked me.

I have one friend who struggles with tenses when writing. He says walked but writes walk. If he reads it out he can't see a difference.

A more common problem is people who can't count money. I would say about 50% of women over 50 get flustered or struggle when using coins in shops.

Scruffles

there are alot of illiterate or semi iliterate people in ireland and england still, it can be caused by various issues; even medications can distort how someone sees letters.
most people today,in this country anyway tend to be supported if they are illiterate because it is a big vulnerability,people coud be easily gotten to sign their money away for example if they cant read a form.

reading is a big weakness of mine due to issues from severe autism and learning [intelectual] disability.
am only able to read if it is on a computer as the text needs to be huge so am able to mentaly draw around each letter a few times to process and understand it.
am in a residential centre and am under power of attorney so have a lot of support-staff will read out anything or sometimes am sent learning disability questionaires from social services which are PECS [pictorial] based.

language and understanding [comprehension?] are big weaknesses,have got a firefox addon called kitadic which easily allows definitions of what words mean-without leaving the page.
am not able to write at all but draw very well by using the hand over hand technique.

sunbeam

Rasheed wrote: »

Yeah, I noticed it a fair bit at work, same as another poster, when asking for signatures.

I think some people either fell behind in school, were undiagnosed dyslexic, or didn't go/ had to leave early for family/ financial reasons.

I was looking up the old census from 1901/ 1911 and it'll tell you who was able to read and write or speak Irish. There was a surprisingly high amount of literacy for the time,I thought.

In those days being 'able to read and write' for the purpose of the census might mean as little as being able to sign your own name and read a few basic phrases. It certainly was in my grandfather's case. He was born in 1885 and up to twenty years later the nearest school to our village was four miles away, so often attendance was sporadic. Basic arithmetic so you could deal with money was often considered more important back then.

More recently I have a cousin who was first diagnosed as dyslexic when he started college in the 1990s. Disgraceful really.

fasttalkerchat

Scruffles wrote: »

there are alot of illiterate or semi iliterate people in ireland and england still, it can be caused by various issues; even medications can distort how someone sees letters.
most people today,in this country anyway tend to be supported if they are illiterate because it is a big vulnerability,people coud be easily gotten to sign their money away for example if they cant read a form.

reading is a big weakness of mine due to issues from severe autism and learning [intelectual] disability.
am only able to read if it is on a computer as the text needs to be huge so am able to mentaly draw around each letter a few times to process and understand it.
am in a residential centre and am under power of attorney so have a lot of support-staff will read out anything or sometimes am sent learning disability questionaires from social services which are PECS [pictorial] based.

language and understanding [comprehension?] are big weaknesses,have got a firefox addon called kitadic which easily allows definitions of what words mean-without leaving the page.
am not able to write at all but draw very well by using the hand over hand technique.

I've never been able to understand that last part. Why can't you "draw" a letter?
If you can draw other things why not copy how letters appear on-screen?

Excuse my ignorance.

fasttalkerchat

sunbeam wrote: »

More recently I have a cousin who was first diagnosed as dyslexic when he started college in the 1990s. Disgraceful really.

It was still happening in 2011. And only came to light when the student in question was having problems taking notes and described it to another dyslexic student.

[Deleted User]

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

I've never been able to understand that last part. Why can't you "draw" a letter?
If you can draw other things why not copy how letters appear on-screen?

I don't know for sure but I'd imagine that while one hand is naturally more dominant than the other, writing with a hand untrained in writing would be similar to writing using your non-dominant hand. In other words, if you're right handed, imagine trying to draw the letters on screen with your left. The reason it's hard is more to do with you never training that hand to draw letters rather than because it's your weaker hand.

I was spring cleaning a while ago and found some of my primary school copybooks. It's hard to imagine that given a whole page for one letter, I couldn't draw those basic shapes, but in retrospect, it's easy to say that when I've spent the rest of my life since then drawing those letters over and over. (and even at that, I have terrible handwriting, it's so scrawled its almost incomprehensible)

fathead82

I have a illiterate friend who is 26,he doesnt know that anyone knows about it. Everyone on his phone is saved as a mixture of numbers & random letters. He often gives me his phone & says 'look what yourone sent me',I read the text out loud then he asks me to text her back.
He avoids anywhere that he has to fill out forms,hospitals,phone shop,dentist,tax office etc. He doesnt even have a drivers licence. I would like to be able to help him but not sure how to go about it. He works on a building site & is happy enough,i have no idea how he managed to get his safe pass.

hefferboi

Most of my Facebook friends are illiterate it seems.

fussyonion

I know someone who can't read or write and he gets embarrassed if he's somewhere and he's asked to fill out a form.

The person asking him to fill out the form obviously assumes he can read and write but he's so ashamed that he pretends he's forgotten his glasses.
Other times, he'll try and bring the form home and get his wife to fill it out.

He's in his fifties and even when he gets post, he has to ask his wife to read it out.

He's somehow managed to get through life without learning but I feel for him.
He has said before he feels he's left it too late to learn and in some ways, I know where he's coming from-he probably feels it'd be too much to learn at his stage of life.

On the plus side, he's very handy round the house and can fix almost anything without the need for a manual!

judgefudge

I was working in a DIY store a few years ago and a guy came in about my own age (early 20s) and asked for help to find a basic white paint tub. So I told him where they were but he asked if I could help him out because he couldn't read.

I don't think I showed it at the time but I was really shocked. Mainly cause I'd never thought how limiting it must be. To not even be able to shop without getting help... The mind boggles.

Irish Guitarist

I've seen plenty of people get in a panic when using a computer and ignoring any message that appears on screen. It doesn't make them illiterate.

[Deleted User]

Wibbs wrote: »

Some recent report or other found that today one in four school leaving boys are functionally illiterate. Link warning it's a link to a .PDF not a webpage.

Its a bloody scandal TBH. Add in other serious failures in our education system(lack of science uptake/dodgy numeracy skills/drop in standards of university degrees) and we don't look good on the international stage and this will impact us more and more.

I'm sure it's not helpful for others to have to be in the same class as them for over a decade either.

Chinasea

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm sure it's not helpful for others to have to be in the same class as them for over a decade either.

I'm just wondering though, where you think 'them' should be?

DublinWriter

stmol32 wrote: »

It was only after she went I realised

...that my wallet was missing.

starlings

323 wrote: »

Was surprised when I realized a few people I had known for years were almost or totally illiterate, just didn't recognize it.
Know at least two , mid 40's and three in mid 50's
Seems many hide it quite well, another I know around 60 just recently learned to read, who pointed out the behavior of the others to me.

This fills me with admiration, more than hearing about someone running a marathon or getting a PhD. Sometimes in the pool where I swim I see adults learning and practising. They're nervous, but determined, carefully kicking their way with a board across the shallow end, while agile swimmers like me weave around them. I think that's what it must be like to learn to read as an adult, and I wish there was a way I could congratulate them, sincerely, without making them self-conscious.

ThreeLineWhip

Both my parents are in their 60's and are both illiterate.