What is Functional illiteracy

Summary:

The term illiteracy is the inability to designate an individual to efficiently use the skills of reading, writing and calculation in everyday situations. In general, the 'illiteracy is the inability to read or write simple sentences in any language. And Is also called functional illiteracy.

Functional Illiteracy details:

Illiteracy is the inability to understand written material or writing. According to the planning of many education systems, literacy and knowledge of numeric skills are to be acquired in the first year of primary school. More broadly, illiteracy also shows ignorance of topics considered essential, such as the 'computer illiteracy or political.

Unlike illiteracy strict sense is the so-called functional illiteracy, with which denotes the inability of an individual to efficiently use the skills of reading, writing or understanding numeric in everyday situations. It is not therefore an absolute inability, because the individual still has a basic knowledge of reading and writing, using, however, incomplete and not optimal.

Features of functional illiteracy:

When you are illiterate, there is nothing that which you can read or write. In contrast, those who are functionally illiterate, has a mastery of basic 'literacy (reading and writing texts in their native language), but with varying levels of accuracy grammar and style. In short, when confronted with printed materials, functionally illiterate adults can not operate effectively in modern society and can not adequately carry out basic tasks such as filling a job application, understanding a legal contract, follow written instructions, read a article newspaper, read the road signs, consult to a dictionary or understand the time a bus or even dial a mobile number. Functional illiteracy also severely limits interaction with information and communication technologies (eg. use a personal computer to work efficiently with an application for the word, the web browser, the spreadsheet, or a mobile phone).

What Research says about Illiteracy:

A study on Literacy at Work ("Literacy at Work"), published by the Northeast Institute in 2001, noted that the economic losses attributed to deficiencies in basic skills billions of dollars annually because of low productivity, errors and accidents caused functional illiteracy. Research Sociological has shown that countries with lower levels of functional illiteracy among their adult populations tend to be those with the highest levels of scientific literacy among the lower class youth who are approaching the end of their formal academic studies. This correspondence suggests that a contributing factor to the level of civic literacy of a society is the capacity of schools to ensure that students achieve the required functional literacy to understand the basic texts and documents associated with a competent citizenship.

References:  

1.         ^ (EN) National Assessment of Adult Literacy (Naal).  28/12/2008.

2.         ^ (EN) Kirsty Scott. "Sounds incredible". Guardian.co.uk, 08/10/2007. Retrieved on 28/12/2008.

3.         ^ ALL - Adult Literacy and Lifeskills. Literacy and skills for life. Retrieved on 28/12/2008.

4.         ^ Henry Milner, Civic Literacy: How Informed Citizens Make Democracy Work,  UPNE, 2002.