A Bookless World

Would it be so bad? (LOL* Ninchick)



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Wakka wakka

"We are convinced that when people read, people change"

I, on the other hand, am convinced that these books will appear for sale on the streets in about two hours.



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The two statements aren't mutually exclusive. I think it's a neat idea, and I hope it works.

Very true, Mads. Thanks for penetrating my sour, flu-induced pessimism.

Edited by author 01-24-2004 11:42 AM
"Mexico officially has a literacy rate above 90 percent"

Wow. I wonder how Mexico's definition of literacy compares to that of Canada...
According to ABC Canada, 22 per cent of adult Canadians have low literacy skills and have difficulty with any printed material. I used to wonder if that percentage was exaggerated, but I wondered no more when I began to volunteer as a literacy tutor. I did that for a couple years (recently). Challenging and sobering.
It's wonderful if Mexico's literacy rate is truly that high. I hope their initiative works.

http://www.abc-canada.org/literacy_facts/

I coordinate an adult literacy program and yeah, it certainly is an eye-opener. Apparently, in Atlantic Canada, one in four adults have low literacy.

From the National Adult Literacy Database (a very good resource) http://www.nald.ca

"those adults scoring at Level I [grades 1-6], 4.6 million or 22% of the Canadian population, do not have the literacy and numeracy skills to meet current labour market demands. Those scoring at Level II [grades 7-8] in the survey, a further 5.5 million Canadians or 26% of the population, will be in jeopardy in the near future as the level of literacy and numeracy demanded by the workplace increases."

-from a 1994 study

Edited by author 01-24-2004 12:22 PM
I'm skeptical about the official 90% literacy rate in Mexico. I wonder what they are basing it on. Are they looking at complete illiteracy (which is pretty hard to find, when you consider it means inability to read stop signs, etc)? If so, then yes, maybe the 90% makes sense. But I'm sure the amount of people at Level 1 literacy is much lower than that.

In Iraq, "The once illiterate Saddam, ordered a mandatory literacy program. Those who did not participate risked three years in jail, but hundreds of thousands learned to read."

re /m8

That means 48% of adult Canadians cannot read at even a high school level. No wonder the book industry in Canada is struggling.

As for literacy in Iraq, it's probably higher than other mostly Islamic nations where girls aren't (or haven't been) allowed to attend school.

Paul, those countries probably don't even count women in their literacy rates. The boys all have to learn to read, so they can attend the madrassas and learn to hate the decadent west. They probably count their literacy rates quite high, since girls, of course, don't count.

"The boys all have to learn to read, so they can attend the madrassas and learn to hate the decadent west"

Don't you think this is rather simplistic?

I know literacy has helped me to hate the decadent west.

   Ninjas:

   Paul's stat has me thinking...

   Anyone know where the statistic about Canada having more poets per capita than any other country came from? It's been bugging me... I read it somewhere...

   Also, one specifically for Zach: where did you get your (was it 127) "books of poetry published in Canada last year" stat?

Shane

Shane: it was 137, and those are just the titles submitted for last year's GG award: http://www.canadacouncil.ca/devtemp/gg_query.asp

As for poets per capita, it's an impossible thing to quanitfy. Perhaps the most self-styled poets per capita...

Further to /m15, the LCP lists 378 full members and 82 associate members, by my count. The CPA doesn't seem to have a list of members available. And then of course there is a substantial number of unaffiliated verse-writers out there, too. I'd say a conservative estimate is something along the lines of 1000 total, or apx. 1 for every 30,000 people, 15,000 of whom have limited literacy.

Edited by author 01-25-2004 01:36 AM
/m12

Rachel, yes, but so is a system of education with no other purpose than fundamentalist indoctrintation.

New literacy facts just in. I want to move to Sweden.

http://www.literacy.ca/litand/1.htm

Operation Books

Thousands of books taken into the north.



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Now that is a leader. Paul Martin, take note.

James K. Bartleman, Book Saint

500,000 books donated by Ontario residents are headed to remote communities in the far north. 40,000 books have already been transported and the rest are waiting in army bases. Now if we can just go through them and take out the Bonnie Burnard...



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Fake Readers

"Have you ever read a few pages when your mind was elsewhere? Or finished a book and then are unable to summarize its plot? If so, you're not alone. In fact, kids in Colorado are famous for it." I can solve this problem in about two seconds - hook them up with all the fake writers...



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Scottish Teens Seldom Caught in a Bind (Get It? Like a BOOK Bind? I Crack Me Up!)

Seriously though folks, I h8 illiteraC amung tEns, dnt U 2?



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Children's Laureate?

British children not taught to love books, toothbrushes. (I kid because I love.)



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Morpugo comes across as rather silly in this article and he may well be. I've read several of his books, though, and can attest to his skill as a children's writer. The Butterfly Lion is great, as is his retelling of Joan of Arc and his retelling of Robin Hood (beautifully illustrated by Michael Foreman). My son is reading his most recent book, Private Peaceful, and thoroughly enjoying it.

O Brave new world...

Welcome to the future. Students can't write by hand and are flunking tests because of it. The old codger in me says, Well good! The young technophile cries, Foul! The eschatological nut in me says, We should have listened to Philip K Dick when we had the chance (say in one of the last six or seven movies...)



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Fewer Americans reading

This is what passes for news?*

Oprah's Book Club may help sell millions of books to Americans, and slam poetry may have engendered a youthful new breed of wordsmith, but the nation is still caught in a tide of indifference when it comes to literature. That is the sobering profile of a new survey to be released today by the National Endowment for the Arts, which describes a precipitous downward trend in book consumption by Americans and a particular decline in the reading of fiction, poetry and drama.
...
"In an age where there's no canon, where there are so many other forms of information, and where we're returning to medieval-like oral culture based on television," he said, "I think that's pretty impressive, quite frankly." Mr. Starr continued: "We should be alarmed, I suppose, but the horse has long since run out of the barn. There are two distinct cultures that have evolved, and by far the smaller is the one that's tied up with book and high culture. You can get through American life and be very successful without anybody ever asking you whether Shylock is an anti-Semitic character or whether `Death in Venice' is better than `The Magic Mountain.' "

Yes, and it's good to be obese, loud bullies and we should embrace our over-privileged inner imperialists.



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No one talks about this side of professional wrestling...

Mostly because it's major boring shit... Gosh, these anabolic, porn-pushing dimwits are doing so much to shape the minds of our youth. We should thank them and then put them down with tranquilizer darts.



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American literacy hobbled by Dr. Evil... I mean, Seuss

Is The Cat in the Hat to blame for a lost generation of readers?

Ever since the 1983 report A Nation at Risk (issued by the National Commission on Excellence in Education) sparked neo-Sputnik alarm about illiterate young Americans, reading promotion has resurfaced as a national priority. Over the last decade (during which the pace of reading's decline has accelerated, according to the NEA's figures), book boosterism has generated yet more publicity—from efforts like the "Read Across America" program to Oprah's Book Club. You might be forgiven for asking whether the civic-minded crusade to promote "active and engaged literacy," in the NEA report's phrase, might be part of the problem.

That's not a new question, either. Check in with your average middle- or high-school kid this summer, and you'll find him avoiding his "recommended" reading—and not because he hates books; he feels bossed, and bridles. He surely hasn't read Virginia Woolf's "How Should One Read a Book?" but she's on his side in balking at literary prodders and pokers. In the essay, she warns that "to admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries."

What Woolf couldn't have anticipated was a very furry authority—wearing a weird red-and-white-striped cap instead of a gown—barging into the library: the Cat in the Hat.

I find much of this article compelling. But that cat is just so darn zany, I can't hate him. Though he used to give me nightmares. PUT THE FISH DOWN! YOU'RE GOING TO KILL THE FISH!



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The evils of French... immersion

Is French immersion to blame for poor reading performance in teens? (From PFW)



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Getting kids to read

Um, hello? Dirty pictures? Okay, or this...

Research shows that, with so many other things competing for the attention of teenagers — from videogames to MSN — reading for pleasure starts to decline at about age 12. Recent U.S. studies found an alarming number of capable students rarely read unless required to as part of schoolwork. Typically, the reason is lack of motivation rather than incompetence.

What makes Jefferson's approach innovative is that, instead of pitting the computer screen against the book, she's bringing them together. She wants to link reading to other things that motivate 13- to 19-year-olds, like computers, social connections and being up on the latest "buzz."

But I be dirty pictures would work. In related news: British children no longer read, make political decisions for self.



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The american werker be; not only lazy, but not so good with the werds

A full third of US employees may not meet the literacy requirements for their jobs. That's as many people as are currently employed at McDonalds, where, to ease spelling difficulties and warn of gastronomic eventualities, managers have recently decided to change the product name from 'Big Mac' to 'BM'. (disgust)



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Hello all - not sure if there are any lurkers here who live in the Halifax area, but I run a one-on-one adult literacy program here that really needs volunteer tutors. I'm looking for anyone interested in volunteering at the Halifax North library (in North End, on Gottingen Street) - helping adult learners work on reading, writing, and math skills (grade levels 1-8). Commitment is around 3 hours a week (2 hour session, and 1 hour prep). If you're interested in finding out more, you can email me at lebowir at halifaxpubliclibraries dot ca. Thanks!

Someone's going to Heaven

Send me a postcard.

Anywhere Books has piloted a digital bookmobile -- a van outfitted with a laptop, laser printer, bookbinding machine and cutter -- in remote areas of Uganda to print free books for children since November 2003. Now the project has plans to expand to Ghana and Macedonia.



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Print vs. talk

Philip Marchand looks at the book as a repository of "knowledge"... well, the how-to book.

We humans seem to be constructed so that our default option is to do something the wrong way. It comes naturally to us to screw up. This is also why bookstores are full of how to guides. There's a desperate need to be filled.

If what some people say is true, that the young are reading less and less, that means we'll have to go to newer media, like instructional videos. Whether that's better than print, I don't know. Television doesn't seem well adapted to show people how to do things right.

Nice Bob Ross mention. I'd like to start a movement among journalists to slip references to Bob Ross in to everything they write. But I'm neither a journalist nor motivated.



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Literacy concerns - in kindergarten?

I'm all for reading with kids and encouraging them to read to themselves, but doesn't this list of words thing seem a bit much? Hell (allow me to brag, because, frankly, this is my space), my 21-month-old son can point to and name every letter and knows how to read several words, including, dog, mama, and, I add with no small pride, dad -- but that's because it's been organic to the process of our lives. We colour a lot and sign our names to the pictures. So he got to know GEORGE, DAD, and SILAS pretty quickly. Further, we read a lot of alphabet books (like Seuss's Big A, Little A) that have standard fonts in them instead of crazy loopy letters. So he knows what A looks like when he sees it in other places. But I wonder if sitting with flash cards will actually help build confidence so much as tip the youngun off to the fact that mommy or daddy thinks there's something wrong.



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The Book Thing

Dammit. I just knew there was a name as good as Bookninja out there. And a better idea* too (use bugmenot to get around the ridiculous registration).

It's a bare-bones operation: The basement has no heat or running water, no bathroom, and most of the light comes from the hanging light bulbs in each alcove. The Book Thing's annual budget hovers around $50,000, according to tax records. That's a low figure considering the thousands of books the nonprofit gives away.

Inside the basement and scattered on the concrete outside are tens of thousands of books -- all donated, all free. Shelves line nearly every inch of wall space; books that couldn't be crammed onto the overburdened shelves lean against them in stacks several feet high. Every Saturday and Sunday, Wattenberg throws open the door to the public -- everyone is welcome and they can take away as much reading material as they like.



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Stepping stones to... what?

Educators are using comics* to reach out to reluctant readers (ie, boys). Is this a good thing?

Interest in comics as an educational tool is rising amid a publishing renaissance for comics and their grown-up cousin, graphic novels -- more-sophisticated combinations of words and pictures featuring longer stories.

Back in my first year of undergrad I wrote a paper outlining bridges from comics to classic literature and yet, despite my prof's overjoyed A+, I slowly lost faith in the strategy. See, my ethnographic research (ie, hanging out with highschool buddies) shows that comic book reading leads to Robert Jordan and David Eddings reading, not classic literature. Fewer pictures, same worth (and before you freak out, I'm talking about trashy comics and poorly done graphic novels, of which there are many). My suspicion now is, the people who are going to find literature find it, whether they read comics or not.



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It's true. I read comics and David Eddings before one day being knocked flat by a flash of light on the road to Charlottetown.

Is England failing its poorest kids?

Why should they be any different than here? (Oh, the accent, right. Phonic intelligence.) Some recent statistics show the reading levels well below what they should be, particularly in the worst schools. (Well, duh.) There are some heartbreaking anecdotes here.



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One Nation, Under Odg: Opiate of the illiterate masses

That's just what I've been SAYING!!

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say.

Fixing America's ignorance through education? Why, that's so crazy it just might woik!



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Edited by author 01-14-2005 12:25 PM

Well, now you've done it, education? Religion? You're so on Homeland Security's watch list.

I suspect I left my better judgment in my other pants, but I've always been intrigued by this.

re /m39, specifically "my prof's overjoyed A+".

How come those who most vehemently attack academics are also those who are most boastful about their own academic achievements? It's as if the only things that professors do correctly is recognize the speaker's brillance.

Martin, maybe it's because the most common response to "attacks" on academics (which I prefer to think of as criticism) is that the "attacker" is someone who's bitter about not being able to hack it in academe. (Or, apparently if they clearly can hack it, that they're immodest braggarts.) Leaving the question of grades aside, an awful lot more smart, original thinkers drop out of PhD programmes (or never start them) than finish them; and an awful lot of not-so-smart less-than-original thinkers do finish them. The result being that, as with almost any other profession, a small minority do worthwhile work, while the rest drag the whole thing down to their level--all the while maintaining the cachet of being an "expert in the field." I think there are more frauds in English than in other fields because there's more latitude for bullshit in English, especially once you open up the field to any "text" at all. Do you feel compelled to defend the establishment because you belong to it? If so, an odd thing from my perspective, having never had much respect for any of my employers, nor for a good many of my co-workers. Perhaps a case of Stockholm syndrome?

/m43:

That image should really be sold as a poster/T-shirt. Or maybe a magazine you can only buy in womyn's ware shops.

Peter

Writing has nothing to do with common sense

Common sense says teaching grammar to children will improve their writing. But, says Philip Pullman, common sense is wrong.

And the crazy thing is that the common sense brigade think that they're the practical ones, and that approaches like the one I'm advocating here are sentimental moonshine. They could hardly be more wrong. It's when we do this foolish, time-consuming, romantic, quixotic, childlike thing called play that we are most practical, most useful, and most firmly grounded in reality, because the world itself is the most unlikely of places, and it works in the oddest of ways, and we won't make any sense of it by doing what everybody else has done before us. It's when we fool about with the stuff the world is made of that we make the most valuable discoveries, we create the most lasting beauty, we discover the most profound truths. The youngest children can do it, and the greatest artists, the greatest scientists do it all the time. Everything else is proofreading.

I like Philip Pullman plenty, especially when he writes like this instead of selling out to movie studios. If you haven't yet, you have to read the His Dark Materials trilogy before it gets ruined by the film version. Start here (this is my favourite cover art too... there's one American edition that makes it look like a David Eddings set...)



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Stop throwing our children to the sharks!

Apparently kids can't learn to read anymore (obviously it's not that people aren't putting in the effort to teach them...), so the newest solution is to strap them on to the old padded assbench and have your DVD player READ TO THEM while they play games. That oughtta solve the problem, thanks for that Scholastic. You're fucking brilliant.

The Read With Me DVD! product is aimed at children 3 to 7 years old and is designed to help with story comprehension and building vocabulary.

Kids will watch a special animated DVD version of classic books like "Miss Spider's Tea Party" or "Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory." The books-on-DVD format will give kids the option of playing games and interacting with the story, or just having the story read to them.
...
In the item's primary mode, words and illustrations of the books appear on the television screen as the story is read aloud to the child. At certain moments in the story, children are encouraged to stay and play on the page where they can learn the new words and respond to questions about the characters and story.

It's a wonderful world we live in when parents aren't even needed! Um, people, get the fucking books yourself and read them to your children. There's a reason my son is recognizing certain words, knows his alphabet, and is reciting stories before he turns two (on Monday!). Because I PARENT. Hello?! I don't even do that much, really. I just spend time with him and we don't watch TV. That's it! We play games and read books. It's not rocket science!



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Hey Book Ninja,

I like the idea. Think of the other times when its useful. How about instead of popping in some animated movie they've seen 100 times, they put this in the DVD player. The player I speak of is in the pointlessly hugh SUV they bought for the mountains they'll never go offroading on (I hate SUV's but that's another beef). The point is, these can come in handy at times when a parent just can't be there, and it's better than nothing.

Also, and I agree this is a lame thing to do instead of reading to your kids, but, a parent could watch it with a kid.

Ultimately, you're right, parenting is the best way to teach a kid, but there are times when this could fit the bill.

And as I always say, if gets kids reading, or even thinking of books, it isn't half bad.

But this is like the literary equivilent of medication. You're treating the symptoms, not preventing the illness. We have to ask ourselves why and how we've come to a point where we're desperate to get kids to connect signifiers with signs, when just 20 years ago they were lined up at lunch to purchase books from Scholastic's catalogue. The most exciting days of the year at school were library days and when your Scholastic books came in (okay, and hotdog day). I literally freaked out if I found a Gordon Korman or Encyclopedia Brown I hadn't read. Not great literature, sure, but staples of childhood. Where has that excitement gone? Why are we desperate enough to try to go for the "cross-over" appeal?

Ah yes, where are the Encyclopedia Browns of yesteryear?

Couldn't agree more, George. Those ads make me furious, too. Like you're a negligent parent if you don't have the latest high-tech gadget to help you abdicate parenting responsibilities. Hate those in-car movie systems, too, and for the same reason. This is teaching children to have short attention spans, for godsakes. What's so bad about looking out the window long enough to notice something?

When I go to the public library with my kids I notice two things: 1) kids crowd around me when I read to my kids, because evidently they don't get read to, and 2) my kids are the only ones left after two or three pages, because the other kids have used up their attention span for something as slow as books.

I don't care. I'm going to keep doing it this way. We are a bookish family: my 5 year old is still learning to read but will still pore over books for a good long while. My 8 year old is on his second go-round with Lord of the Rings. It does matter to do it the slow way.

i used to read to my son... sendak, dr suess, animorphs, harry potter, and now... he's too big. now we go to movies and discuss layers and nuance of the film's storytelling. each phase rocks.

I've noticed that library thing too! I end up conducting story time for five or six kids. Worse still is how they fight over lap space (but that's for another rant on the Why's it so hard to love your children? board).

The sad thing about the library is that the kid's section is jam-packed with toys, computers, and videos. I'm sounding crotchety even to myself here, but dammit, the books should be the entertainment at the library! Okay, maybe a fish tank and some puzzles, but that's it.

From the first day we were pressured to buy toys that squawked and flashed and played tunes, but I remember thinking, these are just training him to ask for a Playstation. The generation that grew up on Gameboy now has iPods and Palms and hightech cells. What consumes your time as a child consumes you as an adult. I read LOTR at very early age too, and despite my psycho Christian mother's fears that I would go all Tom Hanks from Mazes and Monsters, I in fact developed a higher standard for the books I wanted to read after that.

I should add that I forgot to mention Motorcycle Mouse, which might have been the coolest book ever written for a 5 year old.

Yep, with you on all the computers in the kids section at the library. Kids who have no acquaintance with books sign up so that they can Internet game with their friends. And my kids eyes go straight there, of course, because the pretty flashing lights do that. I have actually complained to several librarians about it.

And so it finally comes out

Literacy levels are linked with income. The sociologists once again proving that-which-we-all-already-knew-to-be-true true. But God bless em, now its on paper, the blood that flows in the icy veins of the world's governments, and will have to dealt with it at some point. (



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Getting stewed(ious)

Reading among children not in danger.

According to a Tesco study that asked 2,600 parents about their children's reading habits, the perception that children spend their lives glued to a computer screen playing games is either a myth or a huge exaggeration.

Or, more likely, parents are lying. The child-to-parent/parent-to-child recommendations at the end are interesting.



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But they sound so smart...

1.2m British kids fail to meet standards for age-based reading levels. Maybe reading's just not for them... Maybe they should try wizard school, or, like, something.



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Laura Bush says boys are stupider than girls

Well, given her personal experience, I can understand. But even scientists (scientimatitions, for young trouble-with-reading Wubblewoo) ) are saying boys lag behind girls in reading.

Exactly what should be done, however, is unclear, because there is no consensus on how much genetics, environment and culture are responsible for the gap. And it is not strictly a U.S. phenomenon: Stephen Gorard, education professor at the University of York in England, reviewed scores for 22 countries and discovered gaps in every one, despite differences in school setups and curricula.

In my experience, boys always lag behind girls because, frankly, the view is better from back here.. Badum bump! I'll be back on at 11, folks. Remember to tip your waitress.



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Reading program helps get kids excited about reading...

Comics books and dub get kids excited.



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Edited by author 03-23-2005 08:52 AM
Getting Johnny to read

Nova Scotia has discovered something really new, here. They can get little girls to read. Wow.

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John Wilson's article on what boys like to read is excellent: thoughtful, sensitive and right on target. Don't miss it!

Edited by author 04-01-2005 02:05 PM
The sky is not falling

Canadians spend twice as much on books as we do on the cockfights. The survey makes no distinction between literature, children's books, Atkins diet manuals or, for that matter, books about cockfights.

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A bit self-congratulatory, isn't it? As a bookseller and lit-fest organizer I can tell you t'is not poetry or literary fiction.

Edited by author 04-18-2005 11:47 AM
Genghis Khan: new posterboy for literacy?

This'll definitely get the boys reading.

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Edited by author 04-26-2005 10:10 AM
Literacy in the Arab world

A polemical article on education in the Arab countries; it's all a little frightening, folks:

Sadly, the bottom spot of the literacy rate, according to the EFA report 2003-4 was reserved for no other than Iraq, a country that was once recognised for being a Third World model of development. Along with Cuba, Iraq once offered universal education and health coverage. Now, following 15 years tainted by crippling sanctions, unjustified and bloody war, and a self-consumed and brutal occupation only 39.3 per cent of Iraqis can read.

What's the statistical figure measuring poverty and anger I wonder?

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Edited by author 05-16-2005 11:18 AM
Literacy Idol

Ten almost good-looking wordies vote each other off the island, or, out of the Reference Library, Special Collections Rreading Room based on who can get along best with whom using the most erudite vocabulary. Well, not exactly -- Canada Post has an initiative worth knowing about.

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Edited by author 06-15-2005 09:54 AM
Wrong war poetry

Students in England were taught the wrong syllabus for their GCSE English exams. Is this a Monty Python skit; I seem to recall? Could this be a clue as to why testing is inherently ludicrous and teaching to a test even more so?

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Reading vs the suicide rate

A new literacy programme aimed at young Natives on isolated reserves, is working against abnormally high suicide rates.


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Seattle is the most literate city
Yet they couldn't find a picture of someone reading for their article. In other news, the South is illiterate.

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How ironic, an article on literacy in USA Today. Moreover, I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Seattle has one of the lowest USA Today subscription rates in the county. Just a guess...

G

As one raised in said city, and living just a few miles south now, I might suggest that the number of days of annual rain might have even moe to do with the high literacy rate.

I always find it easier to read than walk or hike when it's raining outside.

That is an intriguing observation. I suspect that climate and landscape have much more to do with culture than is generally conceded!

BA: Not what a sheep says, despite undergraduate claims to the contrary...

This article should go over well at our house, which is hostilely occupied by fifty graduating students' papers. You should HEAR how bad they are. I can't get through five minutes of goofing off without Lady Ninja dragging me back to the office to hear how bad the writing is. She's killing me. She's killing my love of words with the semi-literate essays of fourth-year undergrads.


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And in related doom and gloom news

The reading crisis is whack, yo.


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Oi! Wots all vis wif ve 'oity-toity reeeeding, ven?

12 million British workers can barely read. Hey, what's the population of Alberta, again?


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Edited by author 01-24-2006 10:26 AM
And, in Canada, the results of the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey are out: and "nationally, 48 percent of the adult population – 12 million Canadians aged 16 and over– perform below Level 3 on the prose and document literacy scales...

"Level 3 proficiency is considered to be the “desired level” of competence for coping with the increasing skill demands of the emerging knowledge and information economy." (Those at Level 1 "have difficulty reading and have few basic skills or strategies for decoding and working with text. Generally, they are aware that they have a literacy problem." Those at Level 2 "are people with limited skills who read but do not read well. Canadians at this level can deal only with material that is simple and clearly laid out. People at this level often do not recognize their limitations." So half the population can only deal with simple material, if that...and "overall, there has been little change in literacy performance between 1994 and 2003."

for more info, see http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/booc/05.htm

Canada has nothing to worry about with the highflying poet-spook Wendy Morton and her random acts of self-promotion on the case.

Things to be aware of before coming to Canada:

http://www.canadaimmigrants.com/forum.asp

http://www.discovervancouver.com/forum/top...D=51628&whichpage=2

http://www.justicia4migrantworkers.org/saw_new.htm

http://www.debwewin.ca/racism.htm

http://www.linkoflinks.0catch.com/linkoflinks.html

http://www.worldhungeryear.org/fslc/faqs/r...?section=11&click=6

http://members.fortunecity.com/brutalitycanada/

http://www.21stcenturycowards.blogspot.com

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-69-96-479/lif...ty/africville/clip3

www.nlhra.org/Online%20Publications/twwa/twwarins.htm

www.danielnpaul.com/Col/1996/RacismHindersBlacksAndMi'kmaq.html

www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?main=multimedia&MMID=68

www.povnet.org/node/1778

www.cbc.ca/maritimemagazine/archives/040418_africvilleReparations.html

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/pdf/dominion-issue40.pdf

http://www.yourluckytoday.blogspot.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canada

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/indian.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6174/resource.html

http://www.miningwatch.ca/

http://www.turtleisland.org/news/cerd.pdf

http://www.ndir.com/SI/education/debt.shtml

http://www.socialjustice.org/pdfs/economicapartheid.pdf

http://www.canadian-health-network.ca/s … mp;lang=En

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/archives.html

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive...r2005/11/c9164.html

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...rd_070110/20070115/

http://groups.google.com/group/can.atlanti...ad/875b342a4966de27

http://groups.google.com/group/can.atlantic.general/topics

Do not be duped by Canada. Be an informed consumer. Please spread information of these website to family, friends, colleagues, anyone who express any interest to move to Canada. Please circulate these websites to prevent these violations of human rights and gross cheating and manipulation.