Tips and Insights

Last week, a team in our office discussed options for an exhibit we're doing at the Women's Business Enterprise National Council's conference in Los Angeles. A couple of the designers came up with the idea of playing a Pictionary-type game to attract seminar attendees to our booth. Participants would come to our booth and we'd have them choose a problem from a fishbowl and then illustrate the solution. Everyone in the room liked the idea and one co-worker noted that it would be impossible to attract attention like this with a game of Scrabble because "no one likes Scrabble anyway."

"Wait a minute," I said, "I love Scrabble. Testing my brain by creating words from letters . . . it just doesn't get any more fun!" Most of the people at the table looked at me with blank stares and two even shook their heads sympathetically.

I tell this story because I was reminded once again that I'm in the minority. Many people prefer not to read, and if they're in a high-pressure situation, can't read. It's that aliteracy thing again. It keeps sneaking into the workplace, from office to production floor, and savvy businesses are taking notice.

Though it has been on education's radar for a while, the topic of aliteracy-specifically workplace aliteracy-hasn't received much attention in the media. One of the more informative postings was Linton Weeks' article, published in The Washington Post back in May 2001. The National Endowment for the Arts' (NEA) report on literacy, Reading at Risk, published in June 2004 focused a bit more attention on literacy and the drop in adult recreational reading, but didn't address what that means for businesses.

Most people agree that television, Internet and other electronic media are the culprits for our growing illiteracy and aliteracy. They also agree that aliteracy can lead to illiteracy. One of the more troubling assertions comes from Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, a text for educators and parents. He believes that people who don't read "base their future decisions on what they used to know . . . [and] if you don't read much, you really don't know much. You're dangerous."

Because people are required to process more information every day, it is unlikely they'll gather all they need to know from television or the Internet. Dana Gioia, chairman of the NEA, believes "print culture affords irreplaceable forms of focused attention and contemplation that make complex communications and insights possible." That's not going to happen flipping channels and only reading text written in bullet points.

So what does this mean for the business world, where reading for information-purposeful reading, as former University of Houston reading professor Kylene Beers puts it-takes place? What do we do when we want employees to read, yet the nature of work, the expectations of bosses, the pressures of bottom lines have affected not only their desire but also their ability to read?

And how can I get more people to enjoy Scrabble . . . ?

(Have you seen a decrease in reading and/or reading skills in your workplace? We'd enjoy hearing from you.)

Labels: aliteracy, illiteracy