Adult Illiterates

Question: what do we need to consider when working with adult illiterates?

Answer/Quote: “The individual who is illiterate is part of a system within the family and society and cannot be considered in isolation…. That person has failed to learn to read and any attempt to teach him or her must address the failure and resulting anxiety and loss of self-esteem. What s/he experienced in attempting to learn to read,, any special efforts that were made to help the individual, how the person has compensated for not being able to read, what efforts were made to hide the inability to read, and how that affected the person’s life academically, socially and emotionally are critical factors in determining the psychological scars the individual carries into adulthood because of the inability to read.” P. 126.

Comment: I’m not suggesting that a person who has not been trained in working with adult illiterates try it as an amateur. I’m just alerting my readers to the complexity of the problem. RayS.

Title: “The Use of an Educational Therapy Model with an Illiterate Adult.” MJ Scully and CL Johnston. Journal of Reading (October 1991), 126-131.