One Solution to Functional Illiteracy in Oklahoma

Illiteracy, the inability to read and write fluently, has been a commonality since the inception of the United States of America. However, people did not consider illiteracy a public issue, or a social epidemic, until much later. While the United States Department of Education considers most people literate today, illiteracy is a still a problem that plagues the United States (U.S.), especially in more rural or low-income areas (National Center for Education, 2024). Additionally, even when people pass the most basic standards of literacy, they may still be functionally illiterate. This type of illiteracy exists in Oklahoma, where even the literate may be unable to comprehend or write more complex material. Although Oklahoma may never fully eradicate illiteracy, the solution to mass illiteracy is found in the funding and promotion of literacy programs for children, the emphasizing of adult literacy resources, and the backing of reading for pleasure programs.

First, Oklahoma should fund and support highly individualized reading programs for students during the school year. Reading programs that focus on the abilities of students on an individual basis have been successful in many states, such as Mississippi. Prior to the “2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA),” Mississippi ranked 49^th in a national reading assessment for fourth graders, but after the LBPA, Mississippi ranked 29^th nationally (Spencer, 2024). The massive jump in Mississippi’s ranking for the national reading assessment proves that the LBPA was advantageous for literacy levels in Mississippi. In the same source, Spencer breaks the LBPA into three sections, which are the “improving of teaching…[the] identifying and assisting [of] students with reading deficiencies” as well as the rule of keeping students from advancing if they do not have high enough reading scores. The second and third sections of the LBPA deal with students on an individual basis, which is important because not all students learn at the same speed. Selecting the speed of lessons and grade advancements based off each student’s performance facilitates student education. The success seen in Mississippi proves the usefulness of targeted literacy programs in dealing with functional student illiteracy.

In addition to reading intervention programs during the school year, Oklahoma should also fund and encourage summer literacy programs in areas where functional illiteracy rates are high. Summer literacy programs are crucial because they help combat “the tendency for students to lose ground academically during the” summer vacation (Borman & Yang, 2025). This decrease in knowledge needs to be countered because it is a detriment when students return to school after the break. Instead of continuing to further their knowledge when they return, students must spend time reviewing topics that they have forgotten over the summer. To mitigate students’ loss of knowledge over the summer, South Carolina implemented the summer program, Camp iRock. This summer program for elementary students resulted in “the number of students demonstrating gains on the [Measures of Academic Progress] (MAP) Reading assessment [increasing] from 54…to 183” in the period of one year (Whitfield & Lucile, 2025). Like the school-year reading intervention program in the state of Mississippi, administrators also individualized the Camp iRock summer program for each struggling student, resulting in the positive results seen in the MAP reading assessment. Although Whitfield and Lucile (2025) state that they cannot yet establish this increase in MAP reading scores in a cause-and-effect relation with Camp iRock, the improvement in MAP reading scores indicates intervention in the form of summer literacy programs is beneficial towards reading scores. Summer literacy programs, like Camp iRock, assist student retention of reading skills over the summer vacation.

On the other hand, because of the more restrictive schedules of adult life, summer literacy and reading programs may not work as well for adults, and because of this, Oklahoma should instead emphasize accessibility to adult education resources. Unlike children, “adult education requires the voluntary participation of students” (Kte’pi, 2021). No laws exist requiring all adults in Oklahoma or the U.S. to have a functional level of literacy, meaning there may be no known incentive for the 20% of functionally illiterate adults in Oklahoma to further pursue their education (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). However, even with an incentive to attend, if the educational resources are not easily accessible to these disadvantaged adults, “obligations outside the educational environment and…struggle[s] with obstacles or deficits incurred during early life” may prevent these adults from accessing these resources (Kte’pi, 2021). In other words, adults’ responsibilities at work or home, as well as additional resources for learning deficits being unavailable online, stand as an obstacle for adults to become functionally literate. With no literacy requirements for adults, making educational resources more available will give more adults the opportunity to become functionally literate.

Additionally, for both children and adults, year-round leisurely reading programs should also be funded and promoted. Although Oklahoma already has a yearly summer reading program for both children and adults, state or local reading organizations should expand this program to be year-round because of the many benefits that reading has on illiteracy. Reading any text or source can be beneficial because all types of books, including graphic novels, can “assist poor readers with comprehension” and improve “literacy skills” (Garrison et al., 2021). Graphic novels and other nontraditional forms of books may seem more appealing than traditional texts to some audiences. Also, while graphic novels may seem unorthodox to combat illiteracy, Garrison et al. (2021) state that graphic novels and comics can be an excellent choice for readers of all ages because these book types can have “more pictures and fewer words than traditional texts.” With more images and fewer words, readers that struggle with long passages improve their comprehension of the text and vocabulary knowledge. Increasing the number of people who read any form of books in their free time is an essential part of decreasing functional illiteracy rates in Oklahoma.

Some may argue that raising the funding for public education in general is sufficient for the functional illiteracy epidemic in Oklahoma. It is true “greater academic improvements in math and reading in high-need districts” have been attributed to “larger federal allocations” (Learning Policy Institute, 2025). However, funding public education alone is not enough to deal with the mass functional illiteracy crisis in Oklahoma. This is evident in that despite “per-pupil expenditures in Oklahoma hav[ing] increased by about 50% over the past decade,” statistics sites, like WalletHub, still consistently rank Oklahoma towards the bottom for education (Oklahoma Department of Education, 2026; McCann, 2025). This increase in expenditures included the amount of inflation, but the per-pupil expenditure still has increased over the years while functional literacy levels are still down in Oklahoma. Rather than approaching the solution to the social epidemic of illiteracy as something singular, Oklahoma should instead move towards a multi-faceted system of solutions.

Both child and adult illiteracy are important to consider when trying to decrease the overall illiteracy rate in Oklahoma. However, when thinking about ways to combat illiteracy, people must use different strategies in consideration of people’s lifestyles and learning patterns. When targeting adolescent illiteracy, Oklahoma should highlight the promotion of year-round literacy programs; while with adult illiteracy, the state should emphasize accessibility to adult education programs. For both children and adult illiteracy in general, Oklahoma should support and promote year-round reading programs.

References

Borman, G. D., & Yang, H. (2025). A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Achievement Impacts of a Replicable Summer Reading Program. Education Sciences, 15(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15111422

Garrison, K., Wulff, E., & Lymn, J. (2021). Using graphic novels, zines and libraries to reimagine literacy in a diverse classroom. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 29(3), 43+. https://link-gale-com.libraryproxy.tulsacc.edu/apps/doc/A690567557/ AONE?u=odl_tcc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=9629b5df

Kte’pi, B. (2021). Adult illiteracy in the U.S: Education: Research starters: EBSCO research. EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/education/adult-illiteracy-us

Learning Policy Institute. (2025, April 8). How money matters: Education funding and student outcomes. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/how-money-matters-factsheet

McCann, A. (2025, July 21). States with the best & worst school systems in 2026. WalletHub. https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with- the-best-schools/5335

National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Highlights of the 2023 U.S. PIACC results. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp

National Center for Education Statistics. (2020). U.S. PIAAC skills map. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/ 

Oklahoma Department of Education. (2026, January 27). Oklahoma public education: Overview and key trends. https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/osde/documents/resources/community/

OSDE%20Fast%20Facts.pdf

Spencer, N. (2024). The ‘Mississippi miracle’: How one of America’s worst-performing education systems caught up to the nation. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4546228

Whitfield, E. J., & Lucile, T. (2025, December 19). Partnerships and progress: How university–community summer partnerships drive literacy gains in district schools. Education Sciences, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16010005