1 in 7 U.S. Adults Struggles with Reading Anything Beyond a Picture Book

A new study concludes that about 32 million adult Americans can't string together English sentences or paragraphs or read anything beyond a picture book. Undiagnosed learning disabilities and readers of other languages make up a portion of this statistic, but high school dropouts play a major factor in this startling number as well. 

Struggling to read affects a person's ability to contribute to society, from participating in the democratic process to meeting basic needs. Dropout prevention should be a priority for every school district—or when the next report comes out, the title of this blog post may be, "1 in 5 U.S. Adults Cannot Read."

 

Are 32 million adults falling through the cracks of early literacy efforts, or do these efforts fail to carry into later grades? How surprised are you that one in seven Americans essentially cannot read English?