Literate is someone who can read and write. Usually it starts at a young age, three to five years of age, that’s when the first steps of literacy are taken. Parents have a significant role, which is to encourage their children to start learning at young age; either teaching them or sending them to different programs. The lack of education at a young age is one of the factors that contribute to adults being illiterate. In the Huffington post article called “The U.S. Illiteracy Rate Hasn’t Changed In 10 Years” states: “According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can’t read. That’s 14 percent of the population”.  This percentage is too high; we need to see what are the best ways and programs to improve literacy.  The article “How to Improve Literacy Rates in America” from the teach-nology website, explains some of the ways to improve literacy: “Government can improve literacy by raising the budget on education and technology education followed by a proper plan.   The article goes on to state that the “first priority should be researching the effectiveness of schools when it comes to increasing literacy rates so that the government can find out if the teaching methods should be revised”. Parents can also help improve literacy because they need to “inspire children to read from a very young age which can help them develop their reading and writing skills. Internet can be used as a great tool to promote learning since it has such a wide range. Almost everyone has access to the internet and if it is utilized properly, it can spread literacy advocacies like wildfire”. However, we also need to focus on the adults that are illiterate now, they have been left aside and we have to create a program specially for adults to overcome illiteracy. My ad is about a program which invites to improve literacy among adults, to overcome illiteracy and build their future. As the text of the ad” learn to read now so you can write the future”. As the program gets bigger we are going to invite volunteers to be part of our program and contribute to our society.

The audience for my ad is every adult that is illiterate.  14% of the population are illiterate, it’s important to prevent literacy from growing by focusing on young children, however, the adults also need to overcome illiteracy, so it can help us as a society but also create better future for them.

Advertisement is about overcoming illiteracy. As we know literacy contributes to almost every aspect of our lives, as a society and individually: economic growth, reduce poverty, crime, promote peace and democracy. In the ABC article “Living in the Shadows: Illiteracy in America” study author Dr. David Baker of Northwestern University. ‘Literacy it is a life and death issue, illiteracy affects your health in so many different ways,’ he said, from inability to properly follow instructions to not knowing about common conditions or what symptoms to look for.” In another article by ABC ““Out of the Shadows, Overcoming Illiteracy” talks about a program in the West Michigan, how that helped a group of people overcome illiteracy and how important the program was.  The story of someone who joined the program and the struggles she faced while being illiterate. “Well, it was real difficult because I lost a job that I had been working for a long time,” he said: ‘They come, and they found out I couldn’t read so they told me I had to go back to my old job and that was really a heartbreaking experience, I mean it was a real traumatic experience.’ Michigan’s program helped more than 1000 people in four years. One of the tutors of the program stated: ‘Reading is like food, you can’t have, you can’t live without either of those. Not truly to live’”. As we can see they face difficulties and struggles when being illiterate. Let’s get started and improve the literacy among adults so that society can benefit as a whole. In the ad there is also a list of the benefits of literacy: peace, development, poverty eradication, empowerment, health, gender equality.

I think the ad should be placed in “The New York Times” newspaper, because it is a  well-known newspaper in the United States and would be viewed by everyone or anyone who knows people who aren’t literate.