Houston’s Silent Threat: A Life Without Words

In the current economic climate, where 8.5 percent of Houstonians are losing or go without jobs monthly, the job search climate can seem daunting at best. Now, picture being a functionally illiterate person facing the same problem. Suddenly, prospects become bleaker. You’re well into your twenties or thirties but must depend on a parent, sibling, or friend to help you fill out job applications.

Suppose your desire to pursue higher education and improve your overall position in life is stunted by your inability to employ something that is a core element of society, literacy.  If you are reading this article, arduous situations like these are merely hypothetical. But for individuals like Monica Jones, they are reality.

Jones, an adult who as a youngster slipped through Houston public schools to the ninth grade without developing basic reading skills, struggles with this problem every day. The determination to accomplish her dream of becoming a professional hair stylist prevented Jones from accepting illiteracy as the inevitable.

Every week she works hard at the Literacy Advance of Houston (LAH) learning center to escape the 52 percent of Harris County adults deemed functionally illiterate in English by the Texas Adult Literacy Survey. One in three adults in Houston cannot read this sentence.

“My learning and studying are a little hard but I’m still working,” said Jones. “My reading’s getting a little better; I really want to learn how to read and go out there and do things on my own, it’s hard,” said Jones with a reflective sigh.

With a host of literacy advocacy programs in the Houston Area that provide free services and good support networks to those in need, the number of illiterate people is cause for concern said Connie Loh, Program Coordinator at LAH. She said that daily literacy statistics of the Houston Read Commission and similar agencies indicate that all of the services provided by LAH and like organizations simply cannot meet the demand. On average, LAH has a range of 20 to 40 Adult Basic Education (ABE) learners waiting for a tutor. Depending on office capacity, students can wait for a few days or a few months.

“I think the city government of Houston and the education system need to place more of an emphasis on catching learning-challenged students before they get too late into their schooling,” said Loh.

“They definitely need to increase the support and programs that are in the school system already to ensure that students do not feel left out and feel that they’re forced to drop out.”

Loh also indicated that some organizations have restrictions that prevent people on probation from accessing services. Dr. Ron Samples, Associate Professor of English at Texas Southern University, sees a direct relation between the number of unlettered adults in Houston and the city’s expansive job market.

He pointed to the Houston area’s low high school graduation rate of 58.5 percent in explaining his observation that Houston could have a substantial number of people who think that they can always get a job without possessing the academic skills needed to finish school. Samples said that this mindset may be bolstered by a job market that allows people to sustain themselves at some level without an education.

“I think that there must be a job market that reinforces this notion that one can function at least in the Houston area without having the most fundamental skills that come along with an education, and in particular without being literate,” said Samples.

The professor believes that adult illiteracy is a problem that starts prior to kindergarten. To eradicate this problem he said that educators must make sure that elementary students are interested in learning.

“We need to find out what gets them disinterested, we need to find out what distracts them, and once we find out what distracts them we can ensure that young kids don’t get distracted,” said Samples.

He also said that educators should consider examining students’ interest and distraction levels at the beginning of middle and high school and find ways to incentivize students to truly understand the value of reading.

According to Melanie Fisk, Deputy Director of LAH, in many cases, the adults who need help are juggling two jobs, family life, and other life duties and burdens, which further complicate the process.

For these reasons, only about three to four percent of Houston adults requiring literacy education programs are actually accessing them said Fisk. Citizens with reading problems who grew up in English speaking households can be especially disinclined to seek help because of the shame that comes with illiteracy.

Even though Jones pops up at the LAH learning center on Monday mornings with a hot cup of coffee and a pleasant smile eager to learn, the academic environment she experienced in grade school was not conducive to learning.

Somewhere between Jones’s first and fifth grade years an instructor discovered her inability to read, understand, and complete class work. The school informed her mother. Nevertheless, Jones was not placed in remedial classes until her fifth grade year. Being in special education classes greatly upset the young lady.

“I would go to class but it bothered me because I really didn’t know how to do the work,” said Jones. “So I just stopped going to school, I was embarrassed.”

Her inability to do the work and the embarrassment it caused, led to her permanent departure from school in ninth grade. Like many individuals tormented by literacy difficulties, Jones remained reluctant to speak to others about her condition and withheld her feelings.

“If you’re an ABE learner there tends to be a large amount of shame and there really doesn’t need to be,” said Fisk. “ABE learners should try to not internalize this, but know that there’s a safe place they can come. Even if the traditional school system didn’t work out for them, that’s the beauty of this program.”

Jones finally realized that in order to reach her dream of becoming a hair stylist a GED would be essential. Her mother helped her find LAH. Judy Vance, Jones’s personal tutor, says that her student is very bright and hardworking, and has considerably progressed with reading since the two united last August. There is an affectionate bond between Vance and Jones that undoubtedly enhances the learning process with fun, humor, interest and camaraderie.

“It’s good to see her progress,” said Vance. “We talked about the word interview a few weeks ago, and learned how to sound it out in one of the stories we read. She came in the other day and said ‘oh, I’ve had an interview,’” said Vance, as the two shared a warm laugh.

Jones desires to earn a GED, enter a cosmetology or vocational school and possess proficient reading skills. Anyone can help Jones and many others like her become fully literate. Fisk encourages anyone interested in helping, to volunteer by being an advocate or tutor, or by just doing office or project work at LAH.

“Illiteracy is the lowest common denominator for all social woes; whether it’s teen pregnancy, crime, health, or economic issues, illiteracy is at the bottom of it all, so that’s what we need to be paying attention to and fixing,” said Fisk.

Visualizing oneself in the predicament of being unlettered while searching for employment in today’s unfavorable economic climate is not desirable. But the vision that Jones has of her future may be inspirational to others in her shoes as well as literate adults. With the right amount of determination and hunger for success, she was able to get past embarrassment and continues to prove her competence on her path towards literacy.

© 2009 – 2010, Benna Sayyed. All rights reserved by Sub Urban Media Group.