[CALIBK12] 4th grade reading and prison facilities

Thu Mar 13 12:41:17 PDT 2008

I don't have a copy of The Read Aloud Handbook at school so I can't find out his references for the info, but this is from Jim Trelease's web page:

The basis for that formula is firmly established: poverty and illiteracy are related – they are the parents of desperation and imprisonment.

   82 percent of prison inmates are school dropouts.
   Inmates are twice as likely to be ranked in the bottom levels of literacy as is the general population.
   60 percent of inmates are illiterate.
   63 percent of inmates are repeat offenders.
  Why are such students failing and dropping out of school? Because they cannot read – which affects the entire report card. Change the graduation rate and you change the prison population – which changes the entire climate of America. The higher a state's high school graduation rate, the smaller its prison population.
  So common sense should tell us that reading is the ultimate weapon – destroying ignorance, poverty, and despair before they can destroy us. A nation that doesn't read much doesn't know much. And a nation that doesn't know much is more likely to make poor choices in the home, the marketplace, the jury box, and the voting booth. And those decisions ultimately affect an entire nation – the literate and the illiterate.
  The challenge therefore is to convince future generations of children that carrying books is more rewarding than carrying guns.

Barbara Duffy <BJDuffy at lbusd.k12.ca.us> wrote: 
If you haven't seen this - scroll down to Milton Chen's article What I Learned as Principal for a Day.  
Toward the last he comments on prison officials checking how many 4th graders are failing Reading so they can plan adequate prison facilities.

Barbara

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