Illiteracy in America

Functional illiteracy commonly means the inability of a person to read, write, speak, and use computers in everyday life. When confronted with these issues, individuals without basic literacy skills cannot function effectively. This problem is all too common in the United States. Dealing with illiteracy demands large amounts of resources from city, state, and federal government. This causes taxpayers to use more of their hard-earned money to help alleviate this problem.
Where does the problem begin? Obviously, since reading and writing are taught in school since day one, it must begin in school.
Teaching children to read is the most important objective educators have to accomplish. Reading is a prerequisite for everything else, not only in school but in life itself. Western civilization has taught its children to read using an alphabetic approach ever since the Phoenicians invented the alphabet and the Egyptians stopped writing in hieroglyphics. English is an alphabeti...