Failure of Literacy in College Athletic Programs Research Statement This report will take into consideration the failure of literacy among students in college athletic programs and how it influences both athletes and society as a whole. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the steps that lead up to illiteracy, how it progresses to the college level and understand how colleges today are looking to remedy the situation. Background and Significance According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word “illiterate” is defined as “not knowing how to read or write” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). As much as 23 percent of the adult American population is functionally illiterate, lacking basic skills beyond a fourth-grade level. This is a widespread issue, affecting all communities and is not limited to race, region or socioeconomic background. Adult illiteracy costs society an estimated $240 billion each year in lost industrial productivity, unrealized tax revenues, welfare, crime, poverty, and related social ills. American businesses alone lose more than $60 billion in lost productivity due to an employee’s lack of basic skills. Due to illiteracy, the affected population has also been found to be less healthy due to the inability to read medical documentation or health literature (“The Impact of Literacy”, 2014). The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago (“The US Illiteracy Rate Hasn’t Change in 10 Years”, 2013). According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). In addition 11 million adults are non-literate in English; 7 million who could not answer simple test questions, 4 million due to language barriers (American Library Association, 2014). In understanding illiteracy, it is important to take a look at how children are educated in the United States and attempt to grasp where the breakdown is in the learning structure. It is important to understand how these children progress through each level of school and finally into the college level with such an inability to read and comprehend. The next question that needs to be asked is why colleges are allowing students who are unable to read into their collegiate programs and how they are able to assist them in their academic career. Finally, what is the future impact that these uneducated student athletes are having on society. Review of Literature In trying to understand illiteracy at the adult level, it is necessary to take a step backwards and look at how children are first introduced to reading. A child first hears words and sounds while they are in their mother’s womb, listening to sounds and patterns, but children need to be taught how to read. The process of learning to read is an ongoing one that starts at a very young age, building each year as a child ages. Because a baby’s brain is developing so quickly, the first year of life is critical. Research shows that babies who are read to in the first nine months of their lives are better prepared for school than babies who had little interaction with books (“Born to Read”, 2011). The ability to read is not something that is learned by itself; it must be taught by exposing a child to print material as well as being read to out loud. Children learn to use symbols, combining their oral language, pictures, print, and play into a coherent mixed medium. From their initial experiences and interactions with adults, children begin to read words, processing letter-sound relations and acquiring substantial knowledge of the alphabetic system (“Learning to Read and Write: What Research Reveals”, 2005, para. 1). At approximately 4 to 5 years of age, children begin to learn their letters. This is when a child becomes aware that speech is made up of individual sounds and that writing and reading are tied together. This is a critical part of the learning process; however, since writing is not actual speech, this isn’t enough information for a child to actually read. A child must be able to understand that the marks or letters on a page correlate with the sounds that are being made. They also must be able to identify which sounds in the language go with which letters. Memorizing letters and sounds is a more difficult task than memorizing the names of objects such as fruits, which are concrete items and can be seen and pictured. For example, by pointing to an apple and saying “apple”, it helps the child connect the word to the fruit. But sounds can't be pictured, so memorizing which sounds go with each letter is a more abstract process than memorizing the names of objects (Lyon, 1997, Section “The development of reading fluency”, para. 2). The best that can be done is to use a picture of an apple to illustrate the sound of "A" (Bainbridge, 2011, Section “Alphabetic Awa