I recently listened to a presentation about literacy that made me sit up and take notice.

Twenty percent of all adults in the world — 774 million people — can’t read or write. Two-thirds of the illiterate are women, and 75 million children aren’t attending school so they’re not on the path to becoming literate.

That’s according to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization that tracks literacy worldwide.

In America, we take the ability to read and write for granted.

Yet a national adult literacy study by the U.S. Department of Education showed that 21 to 23 percent of adult Americans were not able to locate information in text, could not make low-level inferences using printed materials, and were unable to integrate easily identifiable pieces of information.

A follow-up study by the same group of researchers asserted that 46 to 51 of U.S. adults read so poorly that they earn “significantly” below the threshold poverty level for an individual.

This is both shocking and unacceptable.

I can only imagine what it must be like for adults who struggle to connect with the written word.

I remember quite vividly when I learned to read in first grade.

It was as if I’d deciphered a secret code as I was able to string words together to discover what adventures awaited Tom, Betty and Susan in that first basal reader. For some reason our school didn’t use the more iconic Dick-and-Jane readers.

I couldn’t wait to read more and more. It was probably Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” books that made me realize how books could sweep you away to another time and place.

We were a family of readers. My middle brother read an entire set of Golden Book encyclopedias, A to Z. Our mother fostered our need to read with trips to the bookmobile during the summer months. I’m not sure bookmobiles still make the rounds anywhere, but in the 1960s in rural Minnesota they were a godsend for farm kids.

Twice a month the book-filled library on wheels would set up at Rikka Larson’s home a few miles away and all of the neighborhood kids would peruse the shelves, leaving with stacks of carefully chosen hardbacks.

There are many worthy local organizations such as Literacy Volunteers that nurture literacy skills. Friends of the Flathead County Library is another worthy organization that recently began a program to deliver books to homebound residents.

Programs such as America Reads have done wonders to boost literacy.

It doesn’t take much to be an advocate for literacy.

Volunteer with literacy groups. Read to your children. Get them excited about books and writing. Buy them books instead of video games.

There are several books under my Christmas tree this year. I hope there are some under yours, too.

 Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com