Canada is still illiterate
By Deanne Beattie
The Peak (Simon Fraser University)
February 4, 2009
BURNABY (CUP) – So, illiteracy is dead, huh? The National Endowment for the Arts in the U.S. declared this month that fiction reading is finally on the rise again after a steady 25-year decline.
The organization reported survey data that indicated 50.2 per cent of adults in the country had read at least one novel, short story, or poem in the 12 months prior to the survey.
This is the first time this was true of more than half the American adult population since 1982.
As for Canada, the Canadian Press reported early last week that book sales were up six per cent in the last quarter of 2008, compared to the same quarter in 2007.
People are reading again. Much of the change is attributed to those good ol’ “hard economic times,” contemporary scapegoat, the presence of which means that people don’t have as much pocket money to waste on the more expensive forms of entertainment, like films and hockey games.
Karen Von Hahn made the case in the Globe and Mail on Jan. 9 that 2009 will be the year of cocooning – families will be chilling at home over slow cooked meals and macaroni crafts, rather than going out. Twelve dollars might buy you 90 minutes at the local multiplex on a Friday night, but eight bucks might grab you a paperback novel that will give you 10 hours of diversion.
Encouraging as the numbers may be, I’m not ready to believe that Canada’s literacy challenge has yet met its match.
Literacy refers to more than the ability to read. True literacy encompasses a whole grab bag of skills – the ability to find, comprehend, organize, compare, and contrast different sources of information, and make a critical evaluation of the written work encountered.
Human Resources and Social Development Canada released a report on adult literacy in 2005 that indicated that only 52 per cent of Canadians over 16 years of age had accomplished levels of literacy suitable merely for them to function in Canadian society. These Canadians know how to vote, but not necessarily how to make an informed decision on whom to vote for.
This is an alarming number, but not an altogether surprising one.
Chapters-Indigo reports that the top-selling Canadian books of the moment include the entire Stephanie Meyer Twilight ‘tween fiction enterprise, The Tales of the Beetle Bard from children’s fiction writer J.K. Rowling, and neo-spiritual/self-help advice from Oprah fave Malcolm Gladwell. That’s right, we’re reading, but we’re reading unsophisticated slop.
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve read the entire Shopaholic series and I’ve been known to tote around an Oprah mag or two – guilty pleasures are and should be a part of every regular reader’s life. But, this can not replace steady, committed, and passionate attention to challenging non-fiction, be it in the form of newspapers, magazines, or books.
Isn’t that what the information age is all about? We need to be setting our sights a little bit higher, to the hope that, with the ability to extend information to so many people, more than half of Canadians will be grinding through newspapers written at something a little bit higher than a sixth grade level.
Optimistic? Sure. But it’s necessary, if we want to advance as a nation.
|
