Casting Aside Shame And Stigma, Adults Tackle Struggles With Literacy
Our series "Take A Number" looks at problems around the world — and the people trying to solve them — through the lens of a single number.
At the tiny public library in Winterport, Maine, 43-year-old Robert Hartmann bends over The Little Engine That Could and slowly sounds out the first line.
"Ch-chug, right?" he asks his volunteer tutor, Sandy DeLuck. "Yup," she encourages him. He presses on: "Puh-puff ... puff ... puff. Ding ... ding-dong?"
Hartmann is burly, with five facial piercings, his arms inked with tattoos. This is his second session with DeLuck. He reads at about a first-grade level.
He is one of the 35 million U.S. adults whose reading skills are below a fourth-grade level.
Thirty-five million — or 1 in 6 U.S. adults.
