Functional Literacy

Humaira Zakaria
Professor Gleason
Engl B6400
Functional Literacy

Literacy is a concept that is defined by a multitude of theoretical approaches. In simple terms, “literacy” is defined as the ability to read and write.
For an individual to be considered literate “relates to the ability to read and write at a functional level rather than at a highly developed level” (Blake and Blake 2), so if a person cannot function on a basic level they would be deemed illiterate, these individuals are “totally lacking in the ability to read and write and for persons with no or little education” (Blake and Blake 2). What is unfortunate is that people who are considered illiterate are seen in a way as if they are poor, ignorant and “below average intelligence” (Blake and Blake 11), but what defines who is literate and who is illiterate is dependant on society.
The idea of what makes a person literate shifts and changes by the institution defining literacy. “Different people and different societies will be conscious of themselves as users of language in different ways, and will display their awareness in different media and with different skills, yet each may be called literate” (Pattison 5). According to Blake and Blake, literacy “encompasses a wide variety of attitudes, beliefs, and power relations between individuals and group individuals” (1).
“The United States Census Bureau has measured literacy in two ways- in one test by the ability to read and write simple messages in any language, in another by years of schooling” ( Pattison 4). Another “kind of literacy holds a commanding position, that which comprises the ways of using language valued by the academy and the upper social classes with which it is associated” (Bizzell 141). The United States army defines literacy as the ability for a person to “read and write well enough to understand written instruction” (Pattison 4).
These definitions of literacy is marginalizing, and still does not grasp the scope of the range literacy falls under. According to Robert Pattison “the uses of language is the foundation of literacy, but the literate person must also be able to express this consciousness in the ways evolved and sanctioned by the culture in which he lives. At present American culture anticipates that its members shall be able to read and write, for us these skills are an intimate part of any definition of literacy” (Pattison 6).
The ability to simply read and write doesn’t exemplify if the individual can analyze and comprehend written material. Going to school for a number of years does not mean an individual is literate either, since there are many people who have been in school for a number of years and still cannot pass the state standardized tests that is the minimum requirement to earn a high school diploma (that’s supposed to be an individual’s achievement of literacy). Just because the upper-class have their own prescribed language and the rest of society does not fit their standards, doesn’t mean that there is a lack of literacy amongst the lower classes either. For the military to only require the ability to comprehend instructions doesn’t mean a person is specifically literate, just someone who can understand enough to take orders, but these individuals who can understand instruction well enough to function within the military are “literate enough,” these individuals are deemed functionally literate within the military environment.

To be functional means to have a direct fulfillment of a primary need. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) defines functional literacy as “a minimal level in which an individual demonstrates the ability to read and write a simple prose message, and a functional level, in which a person achieves a level of literacy high enough to function in a social setting” ( Blake and Blake 15).
Functional literacy is to have adequate enough skills to cope with the demands of everyday life; through the basic forms of reading and writing, we are able to be sufficient for everyday life tasks, but being merely functional is devoid of being autonomous. “Conventional literacy,” “survival literacy,” “marginal literacy.” and “functional adult literacy,” are other terms “attached to the idea of functional literacy” (Blake and Blake 14).
Functional literacy is determined by the society one lives in. Each society has their own standards on what a person needs to do to compensate and execute daily tasks. “A crucial element in an adequate definition of functional literacy is one’s performance in society” (Blake and Blake 15).
Since the society deems what is expectant of one’s literacy, a child is not capable of being functionally literate. “If functional literacy means success in various situations, individuals cannot be held accountable until they are able to practice these skills, at least until they near adulthood” (Blake and Blake 15). As children, we are learning to be literate; how to make references to the tangible and intangible: learn the alphabet: how to speak in social situations: how to write; and children do not take on completing daily tasks

without the aid of a supervising adult.
The Division of Adult Basic Education of the U.S. Office of Education states that individuals at the age of sixteen are to be functionally literate (Blake and Blake 15). But a teen in The United States cannot receive certain rights until the age of eighteen; the ages of sixteen to eighteen is then identified as the range for functional literacy because by sixteen we can receive working papers, learner’s permit to drive and by the time we are eighteen we are to “drive responsibly, be successful in the workplace, to be conscious of local, regional, national and global politics and economics, to take part in social and recreational activities, and to make decisions about what educational paths to follow” (Blake and Blake 16). Literacy is then referred for “adult or near adult abilities…” functional literacy then means “an acceptable grasp of the skills of reading and writing for
functioning in society as a young adult” (Blake and Blake 16).
Functional literacy is strictly connected to who a society deems an adult. Since being an adult, we are to be responsible for ourselves. There are numerous programs that have been developed to help adults become functionally literate within their society. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the skills that are needed to be literate are for “occupational, civic, community, and personal functioning… reading, writing, numeracy and document processing” (Blake and Blake 16-17). To have numerate literacy is for one to have skills as “basic addition and subtraction, comparisons (greater then, less than), dates, times” (Blake and Blake18). Document Literacy is to have “the capacity to make sense of documents, such as tax forms, television schedules, advertisements, and product labels” (Blake and Blake 20).

Functional literacy is not to be mistaken with functional illiteracy. Functional illiterates are people who “are able to read a recipe, follow a map, and work the keys of a McDonald’s cash register. On the other hand, they have trouble filling out a job application, typing data into a computer, using standard punctuation in a paragraph, getting their checkbooks to balance, or taking a written test for a driver’s license”(Blake and Blake 6). With functional illiterates they have trouble completing the tasks of day to day life, in contrast to functional literates that can complete their everyday tasks.
The line between functional literacy and illiteracy is blurred through the various perceptions of what literacy is. There will always be standards set into place on literacy by each individual society, and within that society there will be people beneath that standard. The standards of literacy will continue to shift and expand and there will be continuous debates and no single definition or criteria to define literacy.










Works Cited
Bizzell, Patricia. “Arguing about Literacy.” College English. 50: 2 (1988): October 24, 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/377639
Blake, Brett Elizabeth and Robert W. Blake. Literacy: Primer. New York: New York, 2005. Print.
Pattison, Robert. On Literacy: The Politics of the Word from Homer to the Age of Rock.. New York: New York, 1982. Print.