Professor Amy England
English 101
November 19, 2014
In the world that we live in today, with so many forms of reading; it is essential for college students to be literate in reading. When a student is more literate in reading they stand a much higher chance of graduating and moving up in the world. Is it essential to know how to read so you can, understand and follow instructions, complete assignments correctly, to understand politics, and even navigating your way around are just some of the skills necessary to survive in today’s world.
According to a web article on literacy issues I recently read at www.rit.org, children who are solid readers perform better in school, have a healthy self-image, and become lifelong learners, which adds to their viability in a competitive world. As children grow into young adults without proper literacy, employment prospects grow dim and the chance for anti-social behavior increases and the article also mentions that about half of the 18-24 year olds in America do not read for pleasure. A category I do not fall into. I mainly enjoy reading fantasy fiction.
In a technological society, the demands for higher literacy are ever increasing, creating more serious consequences for those who fall short. Just look at the technologies available today: laptops, smart phones and e-books, to name a few. These items are becoming more and more prominent in work forces around the world, and without literacy, and the ability to use these things, those persons will lose job opportunities to those people will good literacy skills.
For college students being literate in reading is so much more than just being able to read. You have to know so much more than that, such as comprehending the information and producing an output to the situation at hand. Being literate in reading also has to deal with math and in some cases you would actually use math more than reading for the condition at hand. Take finances for example; someone, let’s say Tim, has to take out a loan for his classes this coming year. As he is reading over the terms and conditions he finds that for some reason the interest rate is a lot higher than what he was expecting. Catching this before he signed the paper saved Tim some money for the future. Or Tim has gone to the grocery store to get some food for his apartment, as he walked around getting food he calculated the price of everything; during checkout he noticed a big price jump from what he had originally guessed. Looking over the receipt he read and calculated