Did you know that 23 million Americans are functionally illiterate and that an additional 45 million read and write at a marginal level?  In Pennsylvania alone, 18-22% of residents are illiterate, but only 5,000-10,000 of these residents are being reached each year, meeting only 5% of the need.  The Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council states that “there is a direct relationship between illiteracy and poverty. Forty-four percent of the adults with the lowest literacy levels are in poverty.  There is also a direct correlation between literacy and employment. Adults who lack literacy skills worked an average of only 19 weeks a year, while the most literate adults averaged 40 to 44 weeks" (http://trfn.clpgh.org/gplc/facts.html).  The high levels of illiteracy in the United States combined with its ill effects make it a necessary and urgent problem to tackle.  Grassroots initiatives can be an effective way for students to help eradicate illiteracy from their communities.

Students can help tackle the problem of illiteracy in a few ways.  High school students who have strong reading, writing and communication skills can volunteer at a local library or literacy center that offers community tutoring.  If your class is even more ambitious and already has some service-learning experience, students can work with your school’s English teachers to start a literacy center in the high school that is open to the community.  Gifted and talented students who have strong skills in reading and writing can learn how to tutor adults who lack such skills, and a representative from a local literacy center can help train your students in tutoring methods.  While middle school students may not be able to tutor adults in reading or writing, they can research, compile and provide resources about the community’s literacy centers and programs.  Circulating this information throughout local community venues, from grocery stores and pharmacies, to libraries and other public spaces, can raise awareness and offer tutoring help to those who need it.
 
Students should begin such a project with research on the state of illiteracy.  Challenge them to find statistics about the levels of illiteracy in their town/city, state and nation.  Have them think about why and how some people, despite schooling, haven’t learned how to read.  Make sure that your students understand the multitude of reasons for illiteracy and that people who do not know how to read are not “dumb” or unintelligent.  People who were not born in an English-speaking country, who grew up in poverty, or who had difficulties keeping up with their reading classes at a young age all have legitimate reasons for their inabilities.  At this time, students should also begin to make the connection between illiteracy and poverty, and learn that illiterate people are usually not illiterate due to any fault of their own. 
 
If there is a particular ESL (English as a Second Language) population in your region, your students can expand their research and focus some of their efforts on that population.  They should examine the added difficulties that adults who have little or no experience with English encounter when moving to the United States.  They can then research and come up with ways that the class can address some of these difficulties and needs.  Students should also consider how younger children deal with the bilingualism that may characterize their lives.  How does this affect learning to read for those children?  Make sure that you are sensitive to any ESL students present in your class, so as not to isolate or target them in your class' discussion and projects. 
 
High school psychology classes can examine the psychological and developmental aspects of learning how to read.  Studies show that if children do not grasp the basics of reading when they first begin to learn the skill, they are more likely to remain behind their peers in their reading and writing abilities.  Many of these difficulties lie in a child’s inability or difficulty in relating the alphabet to printed words.  Joseph Torgesen of Reading Rockets writes that “the strongest current theories of reading growth link phonetic and ‘sight word’ reading skills together by showing how good phonetic reading skills are necessary in the formation of accurate memory for the spelling patterns that are the basis of sight word recognition” (“Catch Them Before They Fall: Identification and Assessment to Prevent Reading Failure in Young Children” http://www.readingrockets.org/article.php?ID=411).  Helping children succeed in reading at a young age requires a focus on these two aspects of word comprehension.  Psychology students can research this theory and report on it to their classes and their teachers. 

Older students can also be trained to tutor younger students who are having difficulties in learning how to read.  These tutors could provide mentoring opportunities, as well, to children who need the extra attention in their studies and their everyday lives.  By tackling literacy problems at a young age, these students will positively affect the future generation.
 
Websites about literacy to get you started:

Pennsylvania State Coalition for Adult Literacy
http://www.pscal.org/
 
Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council
http://trfn.clpgh.org/gplc/
 
The Mayor’s Commission on Literacy, Philadelphia
http://www.philaliteracy.org/
 
National Center for ESL Literacy Education
http://www.cal.org/ncle/