cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/1006130
This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/aboringdystopia by /u/Last_Salad_5080 on 2023-10-03 14:21:04.
Maybe if we actually paid teachers and gave funding to education this wouldn’t be a problem. Education in the US is god awful.
You know what Education in the US craves? Electrolytes…
It’s not just the teachers, it’s also the teachers of the teachers and the whole American system of teaching reading that’s also in need of dire improvement. A good resource on how bad reading education is in America I can recommend Sold a story, a podcast.
It’s really important for folks to understand what is being talked about here, because I run into folks even here that are like “that’s a wall of text, I’m not reading that”. And that’s kind of the behavior that’s being talked about. Like, if you find yourself in “read the headline, not the story” you might be in this group they are talking about in this article that is linked. And do not let me come off high and mighty here, I absolutely have issues with this some times because I get all kinds of caught up with life and do not have enough time to maintain my reading habits. It is a complex issue on why there is this deterioration of reading skills. And I will likely say something to the effect of “Internet BAD!” but do know it is more than just that, it is just that is the easiest go-to for a “short” comment.
So that said. Nice little sample question one would see on a test that would test this is:
In Lions of Little Rock, two girls form a dangerous and clandestine friendship, that is challenged by racial segregation. Name, in chronological order, the multiple episodes of racist threats and violence and how they increased the tension of the relationship between the two girls.
It’s not a question of “Can you read the book?” It is a question of, “Did you extract information from the book? Can you connect the dots asked in the question based on the information that you read?” Lots of people who identify themselves as literate have a lot of difficulty doing these kinds of things. So we have to understand that, this is not testing if a kid can read the word “onomatopoeia”, it is testing if a person can extract useful information from written words.
All of that is different from the “eighth grade reading level” where you are typically asked things like “extrapolate what you think the underlying theme the author is trying to present.” Sixth grade reading is mostly being able to put things back in the order that you read them, picking out the descriptive terms that were in the text, and identifying what the entire point was for this particular piece of work, among other things. One does not have to really get creative here, sixth grade reading is just “in slightly finer detail” being able to regurgitate what was just read. Now to get kids ready for higher reading, there is usually questions about “do you think this person at this point was feeling happy?” That kind of stuff that relies of extrapolating meaning which is usually above the “sixth grade level reading”.
And it is indeed shocking how many people cannot do this. But in order to be shocked, I think people need to understand what is being tested here. A lot of social media does indeed condition folks to allow this level of reading to atrophy. The number of people who toss around TL;DR is really high and some of that is because it does not interest them. That of course is fine, but some of it is because 50% of the way through their brain is tired of reading text. AND THAT, is problematic. And really I can only touch on so much of the issue in this comment without it feeling like it is going on forever.
There are all kinds of assessment tests online that folks can review and see exactly the kind of questions that are being asked. The whence and wherefores on this matter and the causes for it happening are indeed complex and obviously I cannot cover them all here. But one big one, in my opinion, is education and its intersection with technology. Technology does indeed make lots of things easier for us, but some of those things that technology unburdens us from we should probably reexamine that relationship. Perhaps we need better education with technology or maybe we need less technology with that education, they both have pros and cons to them. There are not easy answers in this for the kind of background American education presents, which that is also an addressable matter in all of this.
wall of text
I’d just like to note for the record that your post wasn’t a wall of text. Not only does it have paragraphs, it is also well-structured in its information delivery and you use connectives well, constantly answering “why am I reading this sentence (or subordinate clause)” in the first couple of words. This is not only easy to do (if you’re used to it), it also takes enormous load off the reader by not having them divine erm “train of thought context”, and actually follows natural speech patterns. But it does require that your thoughts are organised, that you can write the whole thing in one go, or you will have to go back and massage everything down to size. Which brings me to
TL;DR
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”.
Or, differently put: Writing skills are actually just as if not even more atrocious across the board. Another reason for tl;drs are people who are paid by word count.
It’s not a question of “Can you read the book?” It is a question of, “Did you extract information from the book? Can you connect the dots asked in the question based on the information that you read?” Lots of people who identify themselves as literate have a lot of difficulty doing these kinds of things.
I’m really sorry if this comes across as a TL;DR, but there’s a name for that. I’m positive you already know, but for the benefit of those interested, it’s called “functional illiteracy.” And it’s wild, still blows my mind to this day. Like, if you’re functionally illiterate, that doesn’t mean you don’t know how to read…it means you can read but can’t understand language written beyond the basic level. There are a lot of variables involved and I’m oversimplying a lot, but that’s it in a nutshell. It’s fucking terrifying, to be honest, especially because it’s so widespread.
Read to your kids, folks! And talk to them about it afterwards!
Even more wild that a functional illiterate was elected president of the most powerful country in the world!
Been that way since bush
Read to my kids? Why would I want to turn my kids gay with WOKE READIN BOOKS?!
/s
that’s a wall of text, I’m not reading that
Low-hanging fruit
can someone recap it using an emoji?
🤷♂️
You’ve indirectly highlighted the biggest issue I have with referring to literacy as “x-grade reading levels”. Literacy skills stack on top of each other and, sometimes, in slightly different orders. Calling them by a grade level makes people associate these skills with certain educational levels in school when, in reality, you only learn these skills from repetition and growth. I wish there were (and maybe there are and I’m just not familiar with them) clearer distinctions for these types of skills that meant more than “x-grade” which is practically meaningless to most people and harmful for those struggling with reading and comprehension.
Hard tl;dr from me, dawg
A long time ago I reasoned that the poorest least educated of us would be functional illiterates for whom a separate glyph based language would be created. A smiley face does not require reading comprehension or analysis, nor does it produce a populace that asks questions.
I don’t think the landholders who run this shit want more than fifty percent literacy from the serfs who will be beholden to their grandchildren. Too many smart serfs would endanger their legacies, and too few would render the industrial collective serviced by their human capital uncompetitive.
The next few decades will be about them figuring out just how many smart motherfuckers they need, and how to keep those firecrackers too frightened to start a revolution. They’ll be minmaxing the hell out of us.
I read your first paragraph then skipped the rest of whatever you’re going on about. It’s about saving your time in a world where there’s near infinite amount of content to be able to read, it’s a skill to know what’s worth reading.
I agree to some extent, but honestly the time spent on reading lemmy/reddit/Twitter/etc could almost certainly be spent on more important literature. I’m not going to pretend that a few minutes in a sea of wasted hours really makes a difference.
Right. I find myself doing this, yet I’m still able to read and consume whole chapters at a time in university textbooks
Hey go easy. Some of us have ADHD.
It’s not that I don’t want to read a wall of text, but simply that I’m incapable of doing so.
American’s have been going down the dumbass road for a long time. And you rarely meet someone who is well rounded like you meet in Europe. Not to say there aren’t dumbasses in Europe. There are many. But Americans don’t even seem to try. Not anymore.
I’m American and have lived in Europe for 15 years. I assure you there is every level of educated/not educated (crystalized intelligence) and every level of very bright and pretty slow (fluid intelligence) over here, just as there is in every country in the world. Being educated and being intelligent are not the same thing.
Europe is not one place either, take a random Dane and a random person from Italy or Portugal or Croatia or Scotland and put them side by side and tell me thats one culture, ya know?
To your point, though, I will say that the quality of the foundational education in the US does pale pretty quickly when compared to the majority of public education systems that I’d be aware of here. I’ve been pretty embarassed about how limited my knowledge of geography and history has been at times while talking to some of my Italian, Irish and German friends.
I am friends with a primary (elementary) school teacher (teaching outside of Hamburg) and she expressed that she’s seeing a rapid decline in the students’ interest, work ethic and thus their proficiency in the past few years. She’s genuinely alarmed. We might start seeing articles like this about mainland Europe in a few years.
I wonder that the standard used for 6th-grade reading level is. I know that the 6th grade reading level at the beginning of the century is higher than the 6th grade reading level now.
I remember being extremely disappointed when I was in 6th grade and they had arbitrarily moved a lot of books up a reading level. There were a few in particular that I was looking forward to reading while in 5th grade that were at a 6th grade level. Then in 6th grade, I grabbed one of those books to check out but was told that I could t read it because it was now considered 7th grade and that I had to choose from the 6th grade level (which was largely the previous year’s 5th grade level).
This is infuriating. No one should be denied borrowing a book because they’re not at their “grade level”. That’s the kind of shit that contributes to people losing interest in reading from a young age.
Lol as long as its not porn, we could rent any book
Never heard about age limitation
It wasn’t age locked per se. If you were in Honors English, they assumed you were reading at a higher level and could check out books one grade level higher than you and if you were in on-level English you were not allowed to read above “grade level”.
I can understand keeping a 6th grader from checking out a bunch of 1st grade level books, but discouraging kids from pushing themselves was weird
This honestly blows my mind.
This is such a huge percentage that it has to be incorrect, right? Over half of American adults can’t really read? Or am I just vastly underestimating a ‘6th grade level’.
I had to look this up because I was thinking the same thing.
Sixth grade reading entails understanding plot structures, narrative voices, character developments, and the use of language. Students also compare and contrast themes in articles and stories. In the process, your child’s vocabulary should grow by leaps and bounds.
From https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/sixth-grade-reading
I can’t find any definition for 8, 9, or 10th grade reading.
I found this, where the definition comes from, it the definition is based on a score on a test and doesn’t always seem to have a set of criteria we can look at. https://www.justrightreads.com/reading-levels-explained
I can’t find any definition for 8, 9, or 10th grade reading.
Check common core standards. For example, grades 9-10 should be able to
Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
and also
Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).
It makes sense. It makes so much sense.
How can you follow an evolving political situation if you struggle to understand and track how stories develop over time?
If Fauci says one thing about COVID and then, 1 year’s worth of research later, he said something different that is going to completely confuse these people. They are literally incapable of understanding how stories evolve.
That’s hard for me to empathize with because that seems like something fundamental to the human mind. It seems like something that everyone should be able to do. But apparently that’s not true.
I even see it a lot here in comment threads. People can’t connect ideas and context in things that they’re responding to, and totally miss the entire point. I used to think they were just trolls but now I think it’s truly poor reading comprehension.
6th grade level is not too bad. A lot of people graduate school and don’t continue reading a lot, or just aren’t inclined to be good at reading.
6th grade is what? 10 years old.
I wouldn’t expect them to be reading War and Peace, but they should be able to easily read The Hobbit or Harry Potter.
They’re not on Spot the Dog, or putting their fingers under the words as they go.
6th grade in the states is 12-13. 10 years old is about 4th grade.
6th grade is 11. Unless you have a weird birthday or got held back High School starts around 13-14 years. Maybe you started late? That benefits a lot of kids but most kids graduate highschool at 17/18 not 20.
Don’t think so, I have a 9 year old who turns 10 in February in the 4th grade in the US. They’ve never been held back, started at the right time etc. That puts us 8 years from graduation, at 18.
edit: I’m tired and didn’t read your comment correctly. You are right. We’ll start 6th grade at 11. Leaving so everyone can point and laugh. Sorry!
Or I misremembered. Sometimes your fellow commenters on Lemmy make mistakes.
Definitely happens.
Oh, I was thinking it would be the same as the UK system.
Even better then. I was reading Lord of the Rings by that age.
Looking up the lexile scores, LOTR is written at a 5th or 6th grade level. Same with most of the Harry Potter series.
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No shade at putting fingers under the words as they go, sometimes with some fonts and especially fine print it can be easy for your eye to jump up or down a line.
I’d wager it’s a solid mix of both. A 6th grade level is probably marginally higher than you’re expecting it to be. However, it gets much, much worse than you’d expect in a large portion of the US.
And then this links to a picture of a headline, because who’s actually gonna read the article.
Not 54% of adults in the us, apparently.
Yup. And the map is pretty much what you’d guess, Mississippi is #1. That is, #1 for worst literacy rate in the nation. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/How-Serious-Is-Americas-Literacy-Problem
California and New York being high on the list is a little surprising, however.
California has more Republicans than fill in state. The Central Valley is just littered with ignorance and po dunk pretend (and real) shit kickers. I know this because my family came from that area.
large, under-educated and recently arrived immigrant populations do contribute to it for sure
not entirely surprised
Yeah, I’ve walked outside. I don’t need a source for this one.
I’ve spent 1 day in a Facebook philosophy group. I’m not sure there’s any hope left. If I didn’t have to be on Facebook for local call for art announcements I would run so far away.
Everyone surprised by this really baffles me. As someone who went to school here I thought it would be closer to 60%. Ever heard of “no child left behind”?
pointedly doesn’t look at the numerous Lemmings he’s seen complain that relatively simple statements are grammatically confusing
We have people who think that ‘e-mail’ gets an s as a noun - ever - when ‘mail’ never has.
They will be confused that the sun keeps rising.
You must be a hit at parties.
It’s not a new study though, it’s kind of old.
All studies are new if you just believe enough!
Here’s an article with more details about the study: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:~:text=by EMILY SCHMIDT | March 16%2C 2022&text=This means more than half,of a sixth-grade level.
Dr. Iris Feinberg, associate director of the Adult Literacy Research Center at Georgia State University, points to under-served communities with “print deserts,” poorly funded schools, and little internet access as being the places where the people with poor reading skills live. She also called it an inter-generational cycle of low literacy, so it’s not just a recent problem with people not wanting to read.
Why u hurt our brain with thing that not screenshot of headline or tweet
Read to your kids. Use big words around them.
Yeah, say things like “Oh how droll, your lexicon and command of the English language is quite lamentable. Perchance your parents taught you little and never thought to embiggen your vernacular?”
Also lmao iPhones don’t recognize that embiggen is an actual dictionary word 😂
I use giga huge word sounds hella
Your unenlightened vernacular is apparent scoundrel. Face the folly of your simplistic lexicon.
That’s because it’s from the simpsons.
Actually, no! The Simpsons used the word and was the reason it was actually put into the dictionary, but originally the word was used in a book from some dude in 1884 by the name of C.A. Ward.
My girlfriend accused me of being a pedophile. I said, “Hey, that’s a pretty big word for a 10-yr old.”
Bob Saget was funny
And many adults choose not to read. It is almost as if they are connected
This is the reason the GOP exists as it does. It is the fucking idiots party.
Which is exactly the goal. They want a large number of poorly educated people who are easy to manipulate. This is why they defund schools and ban reproductive health education as their very first steps when they come to power.
Large number of poorly educated, easily manipulated people? You mean like the illegal immigrants the left is letting in in droves?
Fuck off.
My ancestors and maybe yours too for that matter, were poorly educated, not by choice. They migrated here bc they were desperate and it offered hope. And now many generations later, my parents’ and all subsequent generations in the family have been college educated with many success stories.
You just don’t like brown people. Fuck off.
Our ancestors didn’t drag their children through barbed wire and didn’t demote US citizens to 2nd class by receiving free healthcare and benefits over them. They also didn’t steal to such a degree that the police gave up on enforcing the law.
I’ve never understood this conspiracy. Illegal immigrants can’t vote. How exactly is the left supposed to benefit?
Yeah, the argument makes literally zero sense, but if you bring it up to them, it opens the door for them to talk about other batshit crazy conspiracies. Like needing tighter controls on who can vote. Which are thinly veiled attempts to limit the opposition from voting.
One time someone made an argument that semi made sense.
“It’s their children! These immigrants come in here and liberals give them jobs and welfare and put their kids in schools and give them scholarships and then the kids grow up to vote for Democrats!”
And I’m like…that’s incredible! You’re really making the Dems sound like good guys here!
None of it makes sense unless you start from a baseline of racism.
The issue is those benefits like free healthcare, scholarships, and such is that they aren’t also given to actual US citizens, we treat illegals better than our own.
Ironic that there’s a grammatical error in the headline… 6th-grade levels, surely
77% of Americans write below 9th grade-levels, and hyphens are taught as an elective.
