What is the cost of illiterate and semi-literate American workers? Benjamin Franklin warned in Poor Richard's Almanac:

A little neglect may breed mischief . . . for want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; and for want of a horse, the rider was lost.

The warning forebodes calamity when, for want of the rider, the battle is lost; and for want of the battle, the country is lost. It is beginning to appear that for want of literate American workers, an updated version of this adage may run along these lines:

For want of literacy skills, workers are lost; for want of workers, profits and companies are lost; for want of competitive companies, markets are lost; for want of markets, the country's economy is being helped to hell; and all for the want of literacy skills.

In a Boston Globe article, Professor Chall of Harvard reveals that over half of the adults in this country are unqualified for today's technical jobs because of their lack of reading and writing skills. At the same time the Bureau of Census reports that beginning in the 1990s the nation will start to experience labor shortages. The pool of 18-24-year-old workers will shrink from 30 million in 1980 to only 24 million in 1995 according to its projections. With 44% of American students not continuing their education past the high school level and job requirements steadily rising, employers will face critical shortages of qualified workers.

The Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family, and Citizenship presents another view of the problem. According to its studies, high school students in the lowest 20% of their classes in basic skills are nearly nine times more likely to drop out and to be unmarried parents as those in the top half of their classes. Also, they are five times more likely to live eventually in poverty and over twice as likely to be arrested in a given year.

Writing is one of the basic skills which American students are not mastering. According to The Writing Report Card (the most recent report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress) only 25% of 11th graders write well enough to receive a rating of "adequate" in the type of writing required for educational advancement or business and technical work; 75% write inadequately.

The inability of our schools to prepare students adequately for employment is forcing American businesses to spend $25 billion a year teaching employees basic skills. Ford is spending $50 million a year on education, including teaching 8,000 employees how to read and write. Motorola spends an equal amount teaching half of its hourly employees seventh-grade English and mathematics. Chrysler spent $11 million in 1988 alone to teach literacy skills. And General Motors advertises that it now has the largest private education program in the world, a joint effort with the United Auto Workers union.

More money for education is not the sole answer. According to the Washington Post, America already ranks first in the world in educational spending, although much lower in educational achievement. But two new methods for teaching writing skills may be a major part of the answer.

Two recently developed methods for teaching writing skills have been found not only to improve all aspects of writing -- ranging from spelling and grammar to logical organization -- but also to strengthen reading ability, which could have enormous benefits for our entire educational system. The two methods have been developed within the past 20 years but are not yet widely used because of traditions and misunderstanding. This book will explain the two new methods. It will also explain why some methods still widely used for teaching writing in our schools have proven ineffective.

You should find this book interesting and useful if you are a teacher, parent, taxpayer, or employer concerned with American education, and writing and reading skills in particular.