Columnist Susan Snyder: Getting a true read on literacy

Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 8:42 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

The orange dragon on the purple tag affixed to my key chain might show we're doing something right.

It's my new Clark County Library card, a replacement for the old one I lost. The clerk at the West Sahara Library branch apologized for giving me the style of card usually reserved for children.

"We're all out of the adult cards," she said.

No matter. I liked the dragon better. And I liked that a town considered a wasteland of gambling and drunks could run out of library cards. Could it mean Las Vegas is actually more literate than other cities?

Maybe. It also could mean library clerks forgot to place an order.

A University of Wisconsin study that last month named Las Vegas the 13th most literate city in the nation has shown us a couple of things about ourselves.

We are a desperate people, and we stink in math.

We are so desperate to shake the Sin City moniker from our daily lives that many of us don't care that the study is bunk because it's based on 1990 U.S. Census figures.

Our population has nearly doubled since then, and our ability to read doesn't seem to have followed the curve. Examples abound in an anecdotal study of valley residents' behaviors conducted by yours truly during periods of extreme frustration.

This is at least as scientific, and far more personally rewarding, than a study based on figures that are 13 years old. For example, it is obvious that motorists on our freeways cannot read speed-limit signs. This is especially true of drivers using the 215 Beltway between Town Center Drive and Decatur Boulevard.

Rumor has it that Nevada Highway Patrol troopers can read the speed limit signs, so I'm glad my mommy taught me my letters and numbers. Some of those guys driving construction-company trucks don't seem to have been as lucky.

It also is tragic to see a grown woman with half a cart of groceries pull into the express line at Albertsons because she cannot read the sign saying it has a 10-item limit. No amount of glaring and wishing pox on her tilapia filets will help the poor drudge. She obviously cannot read. We should pity her.

And we should pity the man who stood in line at the U.S. Post office main branch on Sunset Road on Wednesday morning. He talked nonstop on his cell phone, evidently unable to read five signs posted directly in his path asking that no cell phones be used.

This poor, illiterate wretch couldn't even sound out the little words on the sixth no-phones sign that the postal clerk plopped directly in front of him at the window. He continued yapping about his neighbor's dog.

Many of us waiting behind him hoped we'd catch up with him in the parking lot to offer a swift kick in the ... er, our assistance.

Some examples are simply tragic.

Nine stories about children being abandoned in hot cars have appeared in this newspaper since June 1. All but two referred to valley parents leaving children in cars. But some parents obviously can't read the words and put them in context. They're still leaving children in cars.

Are we literate? Hard to say.

But anecdotal evidence suggests some of us are mighty dumb.