Adult Literacy: Are We Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

 

Many years ago, I knew a woman who'd recently become a Christian. Her first Bible was written in a fairly easy-to-read translation, and she enjoyed reading it. She could understand it. Then one day, I was attending a Christian talk with her, and the speaker made a couple of throwaway comments about this particular version of the Bible. He didn't like it because of a couple of points in the translation. His talk wasn't about Bible translation. He wasn't aiming his comments directly at my friend. He simply dropped those couple of snippets and moved on. But they had an effect. My friend got the impression that she didn't have the 'right' Bible and that she needed to get a 'proper' Bible.

I was annoyed at the time, and I'm still annoyed more than 30 years later. Why? Not because of some finer points of Bible translation, but because this Bible was at a reading level that was comfortable for my friend. Many people have been blessed by this Bible, it sells millions each year, and I have a copy of it next to my bed that I read every night. It's not my main study Bible, but I enjoy reading it. Why put unnecessary barriers in front of people that would make it hard for them to read and understand God's Word?

When looking at children's literacy, we understand that there are a range of different reading levels, and there are different kinds of books that cater to this. However, when we see an adult, especially in Western culture, we assume they can read and do so at a reasonable level. 

My view of this was challenged recently when I watched an excellent SBS documentary series called 'Lost for Words'. Across three episodes, it followed eight adult Australians with literacy challenges. Two of them could only recognise a few sight words. The others could read a bit, but had trouble with a lot of everyday reading tasks that most of us would take for granted; such as reading a public transport timetable, sending an email or looking for ingredients in a supermarket. They were placed into an intensive reading program, and it was amazing to see their progress over the course of the series. If you're in Australia, you can watch the series on SBS On Demand. 

When we write for adults, do we assume everyone has a high reading level? Do we dig out the thesaurus to find fancy words? When writing Christian books, devotions and study guides, do we use Christian jargon that a lot of Christians wouldn't even understand? Do we see an adult reading a comic book and secretly think they should have left those behind in childhood? Do we inadvertently leave people out of 'the conversation' because they can't read it and understand it?  I'm talking to myself here as much as anyone. 

So What Can We Do?

• Many people with reading challenges have been shamed in the past and have become adept at hiding their gaps in literacy. Let's watch our own attitudes, expectations and stereotypes and try to create an atmosphere in which people with literacy challenges feel accepted rather than further shamed or stigmatised. 

• Think about our audience. Are they people with theological degrees? People who've successfully completed high school? The average person on the street? That 'average' person may be someone with a learning disability, someone who has English as a second language, someone who had disrupted schooling due to family trauma. How do we craft our words so that we don't exclude people?

• By all means use a thesaurus to help you think of other words for variety or for different shades of meaning. But don't use a thesaurus to come up with highfalutin words that make you look clever without regard for the reader. (Actually, 'highfalutin' might be one of those highfalutin words!)

• If you have to use an unfamiliar or technical term, use context to help the reader grasp what you mean. For example, if you're writing a book set in the 1800s, you might want to use the term 'portmanteau' rather than 'suitcase', as it's more historically accurate. However, you can help the reader by hinting at its use. For example, 'Helena packed her clothes in the new portmanteau she'd bought for the trip.' If you have a lot of technical terms, you could also consider using a glossary. It's not about 'dumbing down'. If we believe God wants us to share his love through our stories, memoirs, poetry, devotions and more, shouldn't we do our best to make our words clear? 

• Think of alternative ways of presenting your material. For example, audiobooks are wonderful for people who find reading difficult. However, you still need to make the language accessible. Depending on the type of work you've written, summaries and recaps can also help. For example, mystery novels often have sections where two or more characters get up to speed on the latest clues or evidence.

• Children's stories are often presented in different ways for different reading levels. For example, books featuring superheroes or the characters from children's films such as 'Frozen', have been produced as picture books, early readers, chapter books, comic books, graphic novels and junior novellas or novels. Could our work for adults also be presented in different ways? 

So what happened to the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this post? She did buy a different version of the Bible, and God obviously blessed her with his Word because she's still a Christian today and going strong with the Lord. In spite of all of our efforts, we need to remember that it's the Holy Spirit who helps us to understand God's Word in spite of human failings. May the Holy Spirit guide us as we seek to share the message God has placed on our hearts.

Further Reading

In a recent post about adult literacy for the ACW site, I included some further suggestions and links to literacy organisations and resources. You can read it here.

Photo Credits

Featured photo of alphabet by Monfocus on Pixabay.

Girl holding Bible by Tep Ro on Pixabay.

Comics from the author's collection. (Yes, she still reads comics!)

Author Bio

Nola Lorraine (aka Nola Passmore) has a passion for faith and social justice issues, and loves weaving words that inspire others with courage and hope. Her inspirational historical novel Scattered was published in 2020, and she has also co-edited the Christian charity anthology Glimpses of Light with Jeanette O’Hagan. She has more than 150 short publications, including fiction, poetry, devotions, true stories, magazine articles and academic papers. She and her husband Tim also run a freelance writing and editing business, The Write Flourish, from the home they share with their two adorable cavoodles in southeast Queensland, Australia. She’d love to connect with you through her website: www.nolalorraine.com.au

 

Orality Helps to Bring Literacy to Life

I was a story teller before I was a story writer. I would spend hours late at night spinning stories out of my imagination recounting them verbally for the joy and settling of my younger brother as we went off to sleep. I then became fluent on stage and capable to ‘tell stories’ via several amateur movie productions and video clips. I am a keen oral story teller. I still enjoy sitting around a campfire and telling an adventurous thriller.

 I also enjoy relating well-told testimonials of how good God is. My stories, but especially His story telling from His word or other people’s lives touched by His love are powerful when they are shared orally. I recognised the power of this verbal story telling when I began to utilise my own stories (written) in verbal form as a healing technique when working with troubled young people I have had the opportunity to work with in Indigenous communities. Laying in our swags after a full day of intervention and activity, telling out stories of the fictional characters I have written about helped these often angry and frustrated young men relate their own real stories and helped begin a deeper healing journey.

In his seminal work “Orality and Literacy” (1982) Professor Walter J. Ong explored some of the profound historical changes in our thought processes, personality and social structures which are the result,  of the development of speech, writing and print. He not only emphasized that oral and literate cultures use different types of learning and storing information, He considers the impact of orality-literacy development on our understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of ourselves and others. In other words our cultures have developed from oral traditions that are at first powerful, and made more powerful and authoritative via our use of literacy. In my own personal experience, the oral story telling gave foundations for my writing. In turn the telling or re-telling of a written form gained deeper meaning in the contexts and authentic reckoning of audiences I have had the joy of sharing with.

A valuable development for me as a story teller and writer was an instilling and development in my journey of a love for learning words. I came to know words before sentences developed into reasonable literature. I saw the power my Grandfather had with his hold on words. Not only to be a wiz at cross words, he could speak eloquently when called upon, could write script , prose, letters and reports with apparent ease.   He helped enthuse and inspired me to dig deeper. I had already had a formative grasp in word discovery and meaning via empowering English teachers at school, but I dug in deeper, going on my own literacy adventures. Reading. Learning the meaning of words I did not know as they came up in Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens and others. Learning Latin roots as I studied the scientific nomenclature of the dinosaurs, animals and plants I loved. Putting words into sentences that built into stories as I wrote. My language changed. How I spoke developed. How I lived was influenced. A transformation began as I began to live out of this deeper world-well of words.

Ong notes that Literacy is a necessity for the development and understanding of science, history, philosophy, and art, and indeed for the explanation of language (including oral speech) itself.  There are a “vast complex of powers forever inaccessible without literacy”.  Which seems correct as writers. If our stories stay in our head, or only told around a good coffee with friends, they would not make it to print; and hence would not make it to a wider audience. However this is almost an agony in line with Ong’s recognition of frustrated peoples “rooted in primary orality, who want literacy passionately but who also know very well that moving into the exciting world of literacy means leaving behind much that is exciting and deeply loved in the earlier oral world”.

We are so literature based sometimes as writers that it is very difficult for us to conceive of an oral universe of communication or thought except as a variant of a literate universe. What I attempt to do regularly is to tell out my stories verbally. This simply helps me to overcome my biases in some degree and to open new ways to understanding my own stories, the characters, the settings. The value of this is that it makes my stories resonate with a greater depth and authenticity as it is tested by me and my hearing audience well before it is read at a book launch or recital. There is another beauty with this perspective. It helps others be engaged in our journey.

 Imagine if Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had not had the power of the Inklings to be a sounding board of deepening their stories, testing their script, challenging the logic and narrative depth. In other words “telling” our stories is not only at first a point of clarification. It is vital to our writing construction, but perhaps more importantly our story creativity.

God’s word was first spoken. Genesis (the written form) explains this. But even the scripture before it was recorded was first handed down via an oral culture. In fact the value of our textual scripture is in its power to be received through its preached form. Which in essence is orality. Oh that our communities of faith re-embrace the power of mutual story telling. Where each is submitted to the other to give their testimony. Surely we recognise that ”we overcome by the word of our testimony” and that “Faith comes by hearing”.  But perhaps that perspective is for another time.

Ong noted that for civilization to develop the oral cultures would need to give way to literacy. “We have to die to continue living” is how Ong had related this tension. My conviction is similar yet converse to his tenet. I believe we also have to die to our literacy to continue to live vitally as story tellers. It is interesting that Jesus too had this opinion of dying to live. Loosing ourselves to find ourselves. I will choose to live by dying to self. Within my writing journey I simply aim to die to the cleverness and ability I have to get the story down on paper and continue to revisit the resonating power of orally sharing my journey with trusted people who in turn will inspire my journey and take it to a depth that is honouring of the potential of a greater written telling.

Learning From Each Other

Greetings to all, in the name of Jesus. It is my pleasure to Post on here this week.
Thank you Lee for your invitation.

To introduce myself: I am Crystal Mary Lindsey

Christians down under are just the same as Christians Up Over. 
Prior going to live in America, I had misconceived ideas about Americans.
How wrong I found myself to be. 
Yes! Americans are very patriotic. So much so that in their schools they hardly learn anything about any other country accept their own. That is where their power has come from, and that is why they are the strength they are today. They unite together.


There can be good said about this, and there can be bad.
When you don't know any better, then you believe you are the best.
This is a recipe for two things.
Being positive and successful, or,  being ignorant.


My husband Ray is American. I didn't know him very well before I met him in person over there.
He knew nothing about Australia.
I told him I wanted him to come back here to meet my family.
Before he came he told everyone how backward we Australians were.
I didn't say too much in return accept, "Well,  you'll see."

From the first day he arrived, he felt the freedom of this great land. 
Then he began to tell me how more advanced we were in many things. 
Electricity was one of these.
America isn't much older in white inhabitants than Australia is.
They fought earlier in the piece to free their country from the British, while we remain united.
The size of the USA is almost the same as Australia. 

Their population is approximately  311,591,917.
Australia's population is approximately 22,328,800.  
Now that is a vast difference.
It is no wonder Americans are ahead of us in somethings, such as literature. 
There are more people experiencing it.  



That doesn't mean we can't learn, and it doesn't mean we won't improve.

In all truth, these are two things that will and are, already happening very well!

I have to say this also. Americans are hard workers. They do not shirk their responsibilities, and that is something we need to improve on, to succeed.
I speak from experience about this, because I worked there.
Instead of an eight hour day that I had worked here, it was more of a fifteen hour day there, and no one complained. They have a pride in striving for their country.

Lets not feel disheartened about them thinking they are better than us.
At the moment they are. However, we are on our way to better accomplishments.
One day we may even lead the world of literacy.

I was once invited to a church in the town where I lived in Tennessee. Excitedly I was watched for my reaction to the beautiful beach overheads, and the music.
"Well, what did you think?" I was asked at the end...
I didn't want to hurt any feelings, but I had to tell the truth.
"Well," I said as kindly as I could. "Those beaches are Australian and the songs, were from Hillsong."    It was so hard not to laugh out loud....
But then, I laugh at almost everything.
The singing in the church I attended, was fabulous, and I learned a few different songs.
   
Lets unit and grow together helping one another, and improving our world.
After all, Jesus said the most important thing we can have, is love...  
Love and Blessings to all.  CML