Facing Up to an Oft-Ignored Problem : Illiteracy: San Diego County group hopes new film spurs interest in reading program for adults.

SAN DIEGO —  Steve Freed launched two successful computer companies that did millions of dollars in sales before he turned 30.

But behind this American dream come true--behind the suit, the tie and the success--hid Steve Freed’s painful secret. He couldn’t read.

“I always had to rely on my partners to do even the simplest of tasks, such as writing business letters,” he said. “I would surround myself with people I could delegate my work to.”

Freed is just one of 350,000 San Diegans with extreme reading difficulties. They range from those like Freed, who could read at an eighth-grade level but not comprehend the complex documents and contracts he picked up at work each day, to people with no reading ability at all.

In between are the functionally illiterate--those who read at a second- or third-grade level. They read well enough to understand street signs and menus, but can’t read a newspaper or a book. They can’t fill out a job application, get a driver’s license or write a check.

“When I worked for Xerox, I used to have a girlfriend do all my paper work,” said Alva Roberson, a Chula Vista woman who was functionally illiterate until she got help from a tutor five years ago. Now she attends Southwestern College and plans to tutor reading this summer.

Illiteracy in San Diego has long been ignored relative to many of the county’s social ills, according to members of the San Diego Council on Literacy. They hope, however, that a new film starring Robert De Niro and Jane Fonda, coupled with their efforts to publicize the problem locally, will awaken interest in helping people such as Freed and Roberson.

The movie, “Stanley & Iris,” focuses on the friendship between two factory workers, Fonda and De Niro. Fonda, a newly widowed mother of two, works in a bakery. De Niro is the cook in the bakery’s employee cafeteria.

The two become friends, and she eventually learns of his illiteracy. When he loses his job, she agrees to tutor him--no easy task. Not only must De Niro’s character face the years of embarrassment his illiteracy has wrought, he also finds that learning to read is difficult.

He is bright enough to design and build a new machine for the bakery, but can’t remember how to spell fish . He shows up drunk one night for his reading lesson--the only way he can face it.

“This society has no tolerance for those who can’t read,” said Chris McFadden, the adult literacy coordinator for READ San Diego, a tutoring program for adults that is run through the city’s 32 libraries. Learners are paired with volunteers who work with them one-on-one for six months to a year.

The fact that society expects all adult Americans to have high school reading skills makes many illiterates feel ashamed, McFadden said. Most will do anything they can to hide their problem, and even their families are often unaware it exists.

Usually a crisis prompts a search for help. The person may have gotten fired from one too many jobs, or decided he wants to pass the driver’s test. Others decide they want to study the Bible or read bedtime stories to their children.

McFadden said one 67-year-old woman came to READ after her husband died. She had never learned to read or write and her husband took care of all her affairs. When he died, she decided to take control of her life rather than depend on her daughters for care. Her reading program started with learning the alphabet, McFadden said.

San Diego County’s efforts to end illiteracy were sporadic until three years ago, when County Supervisor Brian Bilbray and newspaper Publisher Helen Copley formed the Council on Literacy. The group pulled together the various entities offering tutoring and reading programs into a single entity called the San Diego County Literacy Network.

In addition to pairing learners with volunteer tutors, it promotes literacy in the hope of making people aware of the problems that stem from an inability to read--such as low self-esteem and overall frustration, McFadden said.

The council also found that 70% of the prisoners in San Diego County jails cannot read.

“Illiteracy is a thread that runs through” a variety of social problems, said Jeff Stafford, executive director of the San Diego Council on Literacy and Bilbray’s administrative assistant.

The council, with a tightly knit network of groups promoting literacy and offering assistance to non-readers, hopes to attract interest and awareness from other segments of society in addressing the problem.

Members are specifically interested in support from the business community. Stafford said the council found that by the year 2000, workers will be expected to read at a first-year college level.

Learning to read or improve reading skills as an adult is difficult but not impossible. Once achieved, it can change lives, as both Steve Freed and Alva Roberson will attest.

Freed spent more than a year studying with his tutor, Lyn Freedman. Now he reads and writes many of his own contracts for his new company, an export business for manufacturers who want to sell products overseas.

In the past five years, Roberson has gone from functional illiterate to college student. It took her 2 1/2 years to master reading, but she couldn’t be more thankful for the time spent.

“It was the most wonderful gift a human being could have been given,” she said.

Those interested in finding out about becoming a learner or tutor through literacy programs in their area can call the San Diego County Literacy Network’s toll-free number, (800) 231-0959.