Combating Illiteracy in Prisons - Teaching Inmates How to Read

Literacy Alert is designed to assist those working with incarcerated inmates in federal and state prisons and juvenile correctional facilities as well as participants in job service organizations. Our goal is to equip instructors and volunteers with the necessary knowledge to insure that disabled and non-readers gain the ability to read and write fluently and accurately what they can talk about and understand; this ability must be developed before achieving NAAL standards or obtaining a GED.

Those who do not learn to read often drop out of school and turn to crime. The book, Retarding America, maintains public schools provide this scenario. The cause and effect between reading failure and crime is FRUSTRATION.

Incarcerate a child in a public school through compulsory education where he is required to learn by reading, but CANNOT READ because of initial reading instruction based upon bankrupt reading theory and practice, one response is frustration. Increased frustration through the school years finds release in dropping out, dead-end jobs and substance abuse, and then for some, crime and prison.

Drop-out Rates Across 50 States
State By State Graduation Rates for Black Male Students
Source: Schott Foundation 50-State Report

In 2004 the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Reading Panel (NRP) provided the answers for solving a major portion of America’s illiteracy. Most likely the reading establishment will reject their recommendations because there is more money to be made in illiteracy than literacy as federal expenditures clearly show! Dr. Jeanne Chall of Harvard University suggested this outcome in 1991. Over 50 years of experimental research appears to leave no other alternative than turning to the private sector.

Contact Literacy Alert at mbrunner@literacyalert.org today to see how our training methods can help.

In addition to having served parents of homeschoolers over the years, Literacy Alert is also available and eager to assist prospective "homeschoolers" who are attending state conferences.