Did you know?

• According to the National Governors Association, more than 50 percent of adults in Craven, Jones and Pamlico counties do not have the literacy skills required for success in today's labor market.
• More than 15,000 adults in Craven, Jones and Pamlico counties are functionally illiterate.
• Children whose parents read poorly are twice as likely as their peers to do poorly in school.
• Every dollar spent on literacy adds another $11 to the overall economy.
• Those who lack basic literacy skills are more likely to suffer from heart disease and diabetes; they have health care expenses as much as six times higher than adults with average levels of literacy.
• In the U.S., 30 million adults don’t read well enough to understand a newspaper story written at the eighth-grade level or to fill out a job application.
• Seventy-five percent of unemployed adults have reading or writing difficulties.