Reading Between the Lines

Imagine that a picture in this magazine has caught your eye and you want to know why it is there. You are curious to know what the story is about. But you are unable to read. What would you do?

Ask someone else to read it to you? Flip through the magazine anyway, pretending to read it? Learn to read?

Asking someone else to read it to you may involve inventing a complicated reason why you need their help. There is a lot of social stigma associated with being unable to read and write.

Pretending to read the article will avoid embarrassment, but leave you uninformed and still wondering.

Learning to read will take a long time. Perhaps by the time you can read well enough to pick up the magazine again, the article you were originally interested in will be long forgotten.

However, you will have acquired a skill that will benefit you for the rest of your life.

Adults who are unable to read and write are approaching literacy programs all over the country in increasing numbers. They are trying to acquire the skills that, for various reasons, they previously have not had the opportunity to learn.

According to a recent Government of Canada report, "Reading the Future: A Portrait of Literacy in Canada," the findings of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) show that 22 per cent of adult Canadians over the age of 16 fall into the lowest level of literacy -- they have serious difficulties dealing with printed materials. Another 24 to 26 per cent fall into the second lowest level. They can read only simple, clearly laid-out material.

Literacy is about much more than just being able to read magazines or books. It’s about being able to understand and use information. It’s about functioning in our society. Whether it’s doing one’s own grocery shopping, following a recipe, making a doctor’s appointment or carrying out any other seemingly ordinary task... it’s all about living independently.

For people with disabilities, acquiring literacy skills is perhaps even more strongly associated with Independent Living. It may mean being able to book WheelTrans rides without help, or arranging personal attendant services. Basic literacy skills can have a huge effect on the way a person lives. It could be the difference between living in a community setting and residing in an institution.

Among the population of people with disabilities, the percentage of people unable to read and write is high. It’s easy to see why. In many cases, people with different types of disabilities have been denied access to the mainstream public school system.

Even today, in a big city like Toronto, the number of public schools that are fully wheelchair accessible is shockingly low. Children with disabilities have been streamed into "special" classes and "special" (segregated) schools where opportunities to learn were not the same as in mainstream schools.

Expectations have a lot to do with a person’s achievements. If someone is deemed incapable of learning a particular skill, chances are good that the person will not learn that skill. One woman, now enrolled in St. Christopher House Adult Literacy Program in Toronto, said she was put in a special class when younger:

"All I did was rug hooking and knitting. I didn’t learn a lot. It was like a nightmare. I felt like saying, excuse me, but could you please give me some homework. I was not challenged. Now I’m older, and I need to do something about it." (Shelley Butler in "Learning about Literacy and Disability at St. Christopher House Adult Literacy Program," 1990, p. 2.)

Many adults with disabilities are now in a position where they want to take charge of their lives and pick up where inadequate or complete lack of schooling may have left off. Many adults with intellectual disabilities may not have had opportunities to learn to read. Again, it is often the assumptions that are made about people, when labels are applied to them, that can prevent learning from happening.

When I attended Teachers’ College in 1984 at the University of Toronto, I chose Special Education as one of my teaching areas. I distinctly remember being told that "there are three kinds of mental retardation: educable, trainable and neither."

It was expected that those labelled "educable" could learn to read and write perhaps at a very basic level. Those who were called "trainable" (sounds a bit like we’re talking about a circus performance, doesn’t it?) were expected to do well in sheltered workshop environments under supervision. In fact, they would make excellent employees because they would do exactly what they were told if shown how, and would be happy with very little pay.

As for those who were thought to be "neither," presumably their fates were sealed in the antiseptic halls of institutions throughout the country where they could be cared for, but would not be expected to do anything.

So, it was not so very long ago that this classification was taught to new teachers. At the time, I did not question this thinking. I accepted it as part of the system in which I was enrolled.

Having become personally affected by disability since that time, my thinking has changed vastly. I’d like to think that it would have, even without the personal experience of disability. But maybe one can’t feel passionately about an issue until one is personally connected to it.

With traditional teaching methodologies that have categorized people in such sweeping, general ways, it is hardly any wonder that so many people with both physical and cognitive disabilities have missed out on opportunities to learn fundamental skills. Now, in the 1990s, literacy programs are bursting at the seams with adults who want to learn, who can learn and who need to learn.

The good news is that most literacy programs today are not into categorizing, labelling and giving up on people. Literacy programs recognize first and foremost that literacy is a right.

Literacy for adult learners focusses on learners’ needs and interests. Most learners are required to decide what they need and want to learn for themselves. People are treated with the respect due to them as individuals who have the right to make choices about their lives and the direction of their learning.

Another way to respond proactively to peoples needs is to offer programs in a range of places. Literacy programs can be held in schools, community centres, libraries, college campuses and other public buildings.

With such a range of locations available, students can pick a program that is close to their home and has a comfortable environment. For instance, people who had bad experiences in the school system may feel more comfortable in a community setting. Other people may find a school or college a better place to improve basic skills so that they can go on to further upgrading or skills training at the same location.

Aside from being a possible link to future employment and greater independence, literacy is connected to personal growth. Everyone has the right to learn for the sake of learning, for the sake of seeing what is possible to achieve.

Unlike programs in traditional school settings, community-based programs don’t have to be time based, with people expected to reach certain benchmarks within a predictable time period. Learning is so individual. While one learner may proceed quite rapidly towards a set goal that he or she has targeted, another learner may take months and months mastering letter sounds and spelling a few simple words. This is okay, because it is not a competition. In community-based programs, people are encouraged to learn at their own pace.

This type of literacy program, however, is threatened by the "outcomes-geared" agenda of provincial governments. That is, government funding for programs is increasingly dependent on demonstrated outcomes. The link to employment is more and more the focus for government support of literacy programs.

This way of thinking about literacy endangers the rights of those learners who may not be able to seek employment for various reasons related to their disabilities. If their access to literacy programs is denied because of performance expectations, the same thing that happened in the institutional school system will happen to these learners again.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

How can we protect the individual’s right to learn, and, particularly, the rights of learners with disabilities? What can we do?

Get involved with a literacy program in your community. Find out what learners with all types of disabilities are achieving. Write to your MPP to express your support for adult literacy programs. Become a tutor.

Most community-based literacy programs depend on volunteer tutors. Training is provided, and the rewards are great. Tutors who have disabilities themselves can be valuable role models and mentors for others.

Whether you have a disability or not, you can help make a difference in someone’s life. It could be as great a difference as helping someone acquire the skills to live independently, or it could be as subtle as fostering self-esteem by helping someone see that he or she is worth spending time with.

There is no need to measure precisely the difference that literacy can make in a person’s life. That it CAN make a difference is reason enough to support it.

To find literacy programs in your community, look under LEARN in the Yellow Pages of your telephone book. Every Yellow Pages directory in the country has a LEARN ad with the telephone number of local programs or the listing of a regional or provincial hotline that can help you find a program in your neighbourhood.

Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL), the national voice for adult literacy issues, is another source of information for people who are interested in supporting adult literacy. MCL can be reached at: 458 MacLaren St., 2nd Floor, Ottawa, ON, K1R 5K6; or phone: (613) 563-2464.

(Jane Field has been a literacy volunteer since 1989. She is currently a part-time literacy program worker at St. Christopher House Adult Literacy Program in Toronto, ON.)