17 ms·

54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

166 points by pkrecker 5y ago

thrower123 5y ago
Why would anybody be surprised by this? Look around. People, by and large, are not very capable to begin with, poorly educated, and disinterested. In an earlier age, it was common for newspapers to target a 7th grade reading level.
- mym1990 5y ago
  I would slightly disagree: people ARE extremely capable but certainly lower education levels and disinterest or interest in harmful topics make the former harder to accomplish.
exolymph 5y ago
Relevant classic from 2009: https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-realize.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-rea...
- ben_w 5y ago
  Those examples suggest normal people compare poorly against what I’ve seen from GPT-3, so I have to wonder why? Is GPT-3 actually better, and the tests saying it’s still worse than human because the humans GPT-3 was compared against are WEIRD[0]? Or are the examples in your link cherry-picked? [0] Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic; although in this case “educated” may be sufficient: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias
  - pjscott 5y ago
    From what I remember from my high school classmates -- and I went to a good Midwestern school, filled with unusually smart people! -- GPT-3 does indeed produce ASCII character sequences that sound better than my human classmates did. GPT-3 understands more about our world and how we live, even though it doesn't actually understand anything about anything. It's unnerving.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  I, for one, think it's fantastically unaware (at best, naive?) of Robin Hanson to assert that smart people tend to assume that others are smart. Overcoming Bias, indeed. (To poke at this more substantively: Hanson's evidence tests L1-English reading comprehension, not how "stupid" someone is. Somewhere around 70 million Americans don't even speak English at home.)
nomorecommas 5y ago
And they vote. Go figure. Maybe schools should teach literacy skills and other useful subjects. Just a thought.
- tamaharbor 5y ago
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    - Arnt 5y ago
      Citation needed.
      - weatherlight 5y ago
        https://citationsneeded.medium.com https://citationsneeded.medium.com You're welcome.
    - csdvrx 5y ago
      Leaving asides the offense/racist grandparent comments, the worship of money is what has made America prosperous, and what still allows us to get the best and the brightest. Ask "them enlightened" Europeans (or Australians or...) how much they make, and rejoice we get to live a prosperous life here in America! And no, before someone says "but what about universal healthcare?", health insurance doesn't count, because if you work at a normal job, you get that, and if you don't, the ER never refuses anyone thanks to our legal system which you also disparage.
      - yardie 5y ago
        The European countries who never fulfill their annual US visa allotments; to the chagrin of Chinese and Indian visa seekers who are facing almost a decade long wait. The disparities in salaries are pretty much isolated to tech. Most other occupations are pretty much similar all things considered.
savant_penguin 5y ago
It's interesting that one of the richest countries on earth has such low education standards
- okamiueru 5y ago
  An uneducated population is easier to persuade to vote against its own interests.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    What's the difference between voting against one's own interests and voting with one's conscience instead of one's wallet?
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      None if your "conscience" is installed by capitalist propaganda.
      - adolph 5y ago
        Well, if you can’t read you probably have partial immunity to capitalist propaganda.
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Much propaganda avoids reliance on written distribution.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  The richest countries, like the richest companies, are rich enough to coast for decades on past accomplishments, usually until external competition causes a problem.
  - thundergolfer 5y ago
sambroner 5y ago
It's hard to tell from Wikipedia what the 6th-grade reading level is and how its measured. Google points me to Flesch Reading Ease. Not a very precise formula... If I remember correctly, the NYTimes is written for the 8th-grade level. Similarly, many hospitals/healthcare facilities don't allow writing above the 8th-grade level. So, expressive, detailed, and stylized writing are all easily possible at the 8th-grade level. In fact, I probably write at the 8th-grade level, albeit less clearly. What's the gap between an 8th grade reader and a 6th grade reader?
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  I believe that, when we're talking about the reading level publications target, that's typically evaluated using a linear combination of the average words per sentence, and the average syllables per word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_tests#Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_grade_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabi... If so, then the difference between 8th and 6th grade level works out to about 0.17 syllables per word, or about 5 words per sentence, or some blend of the two. So the gist would seem to be, don't be like me; use periods instead of commas and semicolons, and don't use a word like "orthography" when a word like "spelling" will do. I doubt that that this is what the department of education was looking at when they assessed adult prose literacy, though. But I'm having a bugger of a time tracking that down, too. I'm not sure that I agree with Wikipedia that a Forbes article that doesn't properly cite its own source is an acceptable citation for that figure.
  - gjs278 5y ago
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >What's the gap between an 8th grade reader and a 6th grade reader? They can both interpret the instructions on the side of an AT4 but the 8th grader will be able to tell you that it did not have any alliterations, foreshadowing, or personification. People always forget that at some point in middle school "getting better at reading" stops being about interpreting the literal meanings of sentences and paragraphs and starts being about spotting and understanding the more advanced structures that makes for good creative writing and (outside some wordplay the advertising department engages in) is completely superfluous to what it takes to transact business.
pseudo0 5y ago
Looking at the original PIAAC data source (https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/ https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/), it looks like the level one or below counties are pretty strongly correlated with proximity to the southern border... How many of those people were educated in the US system, or are eligible to vote? Also, in the future maybe submit the primary data source, rather than a Wikipedia link that cites a Forbes article?
- woodruffw 5y ago
  This is the key observation: these surveys aim to determine the general English literacy of the American workforce. You don't have to be a US citizen or a voter, or even an English speaker to work in this country. A more accurate metric would be "prose literacy in the individual's at-home spoken language," which would probably yield a significantly less drastic picture. Perhaps not the best one, but nowhere near as eye grabbing as "54% of Americans can't read beyond a middle school level."
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Still, it is interesting to look at questions that most people failed. Apparently in the 2003 round of evaluations only 16% of participants could answer the question "What is the purpose of the Se Habla Espanol expo?" after reading this short magazine article. https://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/sample_imgtxtequiv.asp?Imageid=164 https://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/sample_imgtxtequiv.asp?Imageid=164
    - jakear 5y ago
      I love that the article I presume you got that from [1] states: > Acceptable answers include statement such as: > To enable people to better serve and sell to the Hispanic community; to improve marketing strategies to the Hispanic community; and to enable people to establish contacts to serve the Hispanic community. Which is not only grammatically incorrect, but grammatically incorrect to the point of message-shattering ambiguity. Is the triplet of statements required for an acceptable answer, or would any individual statement from that list suffice? If all three would be required I doubt I'd have been marked correct - I would have just listed the most important one then moved on to the next question. [1] https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-realize.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-rea... (first search result for "Se Habla Español Hits Chicago" besides the link you gave)
karaterobot 5y ago
Based on the level of reading and writing comprehension in the average HN thread, I would say we should practice more humility than I'm seeing in this thread so far.
- dotnet00 5y ago
  I agree, I honestly thought the people here would be better than this
  - ozzythecat 5y ago
    The irony is that HN posters are vehemently against social media, particularly FB. The reasons I’ve read are all about the general negativity, pessimism, false information, etc. While HN submissions are generally held to a higher standard, the general comments/discussions are equally toxic. Apparently FB is such a cancer and everyone else is such a problem - but we’re actually part of the problem.
    - throwntoday 5y ago
      I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. Discourse should be no holds barred. If your points can't stand unfiltered scrutiny maybe they're not as solid as you think. I consider HN somewhere between 4chan and reddit. People here are actually smart (unlike reddit, which appears to attract angsty teenagers more than anything) and willing to engage in discussions outside of the status quo. It's not the chaotic jungle of 4chan, but if you're talking out of your ass people here are too clever to fall for it and you will be called out. On reddit if something sounds right to enough people who know nothing at all about said topic, it will get upvoted to the top where more people will absorb blatantly false information or self-fellating, pandering opinion.
      - nusaru 5y ago
        > I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. I could be wrong but I think the purpose of being civil is so that people will actually want to talk to you.
maybecrypto 5y ago
Well that would certainly explain the meme culture.
- Mistletoe 5y ago
  And how hard it has been to get people to do common sense things like wear a mask or get a vaccine. A sixth grader's brain in an adult's body can't understand why they need to do anything, nor any data we could give them that explains why.
mrfusion 5y ago
Most of my professional life involved continually being surprised how little most people actually read.
- BrissyCoder 5y ago
  As in reading for pleasure?
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    Presumably - I have often wondered how much more we all read and write now compared to people 50yr ago (even if a lot of it is in Slack / email / SMS etc.) It does appear that reading books for pleasure is gradually trending down in the US[1] unfortunately, but in terms of raw words read or written, I would think that we're doing a lot more online than we used to do off... 1: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/01/book-reading-2016/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/01/book-reading...
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      There's a substantial difference between reading short takes and longer, complex texts. Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book illustrates this in the multiple levels of reading it describes. Critical and synoptic reading of complex works is a developed skill.
  - mrfusion 5y ago
    Mostly writing emails and being shocked no one read them. I’m now a two bullet point max kind of emailer.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Same here. Now if I need to ask someone about something over email I only include a single question per email Because you can be sure that only one will get answered and the rest are just ignored.
redwood 5y ago
Honestly does the average reader here know the word "prose"?
rahimnathwani 5y ago
In California, <50% of 8th graders meet the state's standard for 8th grade literacy.[0] Many schools in Califonia use an unproven/inferior method/curriculum for teaching literacy, based on the work of F&P.[1] [0] https://caaspp-elpac.cde.ca.gov/caaspp/DashViewReport?ps=true&lstTestYear=2019&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstSchoolType=A&lstGrade=13&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000 https://caaspp-elpac.cde.ca.gov/caaspp/DashViewReport?ps=tru... [1] https://www.apmreports.org/story/2021/11/19/fountas-pinnell-disproven-childrens-reading-theory https://www.apmreports.org/story/2021/11/19/fountas-pinnell-...
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  It's hard to know what to make of that figure without knowing how the standard is set, though. I have no idea how California does it, but it's not uncommon to define the grade levels as the median score kids in that grade get on the test. And 50% of kids scoring below the median would only be a worrisome result in the Lake Wobegon school system.
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago
    ELPAC test scores have 4 bands, including 'meet expectations' and 'exceed expectations'. The % of kids who are expected to (at least) 'meet expectations' is, by definition, 100%. But the actual rate is less than half that. These tests aren't difficult by design. They're not graded on a curve, forcing the pass rate to be ~50%. Please take a look at sample tests and judge for yourself: https://www.compton.k12.ca.us/media/5234/elpac_grades-6-8_practice-test.pdf https://www.compton.k12.ca.us/media/5234/elpac_grades-6-8_pr...
- mistrial9 5y ago
  many people here have not gone to public school with people who do not learn to read and write at basic levels. Please let me inform you, its not due to "unfair testing" -- lack of adult literacy is very real.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
HEmanZ 5y ago
Wikipedia happily reports that North Korea has a 100% adult proficient literacy rate. Cuba has a 99.9% rate. Brazil 98%, all leaps and bounds beyond any western country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_... The US is certainly behind much of the world in education, but these metrics are really hard gauge accurately. Diving in to where these numbers come from and how they compare to the rest of the world, I'm finding that no one tracks this in any way that we can really draw a conclusion across countries. I also see other commentors jumping to trashing schools or the education system for this. Does a flat number really point to education? What about poverty levels, general cultural attitudes towards literacy, accounting and definition of proficiency, etc. I have no numbers to back this, but I felt growing up that the biggest problem with education was not the schools or education system, but the students and the general culture around education. Students and their parents just did not care at all about education, most (adult and kid) were actively hostile towards it. There is only so much an education system can do if 1/3 to 1/2 of the students will do absolutely everything they can to not learn, and their parents encourage them not to learn. Some completely anecdotal examples from my childhood: - In high school I had a friend who's dad flew into a rage when he suggested he wanted to try going to college, because college was the devil (it'll turn you into a liberal sissy, they just steel your money, James down the street fixes motorcycles and don't need no degree, you think you're soooo much better than us, etc.). This attitude was only slightly more extreme than most in the town. And it didn't just apply to college, it applied to anyone who wanted to do any kind of academic learning. - I have distinct memories of being ridiculed by multiple full-grown adults (!!) when my parents took me to math competitions, for being a loser nerd. Some were serious and meant it, others maybe weren't serious but thought it was funny to ridicule. - I remember bringing a book to read while my mom worked, when I was 8 years old, and having someone (again, a full grown adult) who told me to stop reading in public because it might get me beat up. - At school in general, many students never got punished by their parents for skipping school or failing. The school would bend over backward trying to help them in every way reasonable, but what do you do if half your students do everything they can to not learn? Threaten to punish with suspension? Many parents treated it as "who cares, school is dumb anyways". No amount of effort into the education system could solve what I grew up around, it's a lot more insidious. Maybe I'm from a uniquely shitty part of the country tho, maybe most of the US would benefit from more focus on the education system itself, I wouldn't know. But I feel like I hear similar stories from others who grew up around the decaying rust belt, the collapsing small towns that scattered around the midwest, and inner city schools in places like Kansas City and OKC.
nickdothutton 5y ago
Dont feel too bad. The UK state school system is similarly bad. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/03/literacy-white-working-class-boys-h-is-for-harry https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/03/literacy-w...
robbrown451 5y ago
There's a strange circularity to the title. It's almost like saying "90% of Americans have below median literacy skills." In that one it is obviously false, since we define median as being at 50-percentile. But this is not a lot different. To me "6th grade reading level" should mean "the reading skills of a 50-percentile 6th grader." But then the statement can't be true, unless you accept that the typical 6th grader is just as good at reading as a typical adult. So.... how do you define "6th-grade reading level"? It seems that you are left with defining it as what you might wish it were. Which is going to vary widely.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > So.... how do you define "6th-grade reading level"? The standard required to pass the 6th grade, I guess? Possibly people are reading at that level but then forget how to do it later in life? That's definitely the case with for example knowledge of maths.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    But obviously they did pass 6th grade. I mean, where does the standard come from? Does it have nothing to do with what the typical student in a typical school is able to accomplish? If not, it is just arbitrary and meaningless.
  - Edman274 5y ago
    Or, they never attained a 6th grade reading level and our teachers and standardized tests allowed them to still graduate high school, because failing to get a high school diploma virtually guarantees someone will be in poverty for the rest of their life?
rsync 5y ago
... but high levels of poetry, right ?
elil17 5y ago
This seems false. The linked article that Wikipedia cites Forbes attributes that claim to the Department of Education, but doesn’t point to a specific report. The linked article does talk about a specific reading comprehension test called the PIACC, but that’s not the same as reading levels.
- gshubert17 5y ago
  The first sentence in the Wikipedia article cites a link (citation #1) to https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf "Report on Adult Literacy in the United States" published in July 2019. This is a two-page PDF that describes the survey, literacy levels, and has links to additional references. The second Wikipedia citation is to a Forbes article.
pants-no-pants 5y ago
MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Well, what do you know about that! These forty years now I’ve been speaking in prose without knowing it!
dataviz1000 5y ago
I couldn't write a coherent sentence until I was 24 years old. A couple years after high school I discovered reading starting with "Cannery Row" however it still took significant effort to learn to write despite thousands of hours of reading. Once I understood the basic mechanics of grammar, fitting words into meaningful structures became second nature. I still can't spell the word coherent without assistance from a spell checker, nevertheless, I write and communicate the meaning I intend to convey. People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities. Sure teachers especially in public schools are over worked, however, what happened to me is abuse. It was always I who failed and never the teachers or my parents who strangely both have PhDs. The onus to understand how to learn was the responsibility of a child and not the adults. We expect children who fail to understand pedagogy? They told me to think harder, to work harder. What does it mean to think harder? I suffered anxiety attacks and mental breakdowns trying to keep up. They ushered me along through graduation because I never had antisocial behavioral problems. I taught myself a trade so I could survive. Then taught myself how to write. Then taught myself a second trade for fun and a third. At some point, I'll change my focus to educational software. There have been several individuals, groups, and initiatives over the past few decades since I graduated who have developed amazing tools I wish existed when I was in school with the Khan Academy at the top of that list. Nonetheless, the people at the Khan Academy who designed their course on grammar also happen to be people who are naturally talented at grammar, the fundamental crux teaching. I have one paradoxical advantage: my disadvantage which plagues every working moment gives me a perspective nobody has, er, correction, 46% of people who also happen to be the people doing the teaching with higher education degrees don't have. One thing is for sure, I would be an idiot to expect a child to solve pedagogy for her or his self. When children fall behind they give up, they don't contemplate the philosophy of how they learn.
- travisjungroth 5y ago
  > People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities. People are probably hostile because you're going against scientific consensus and saying a range of disabilities that affects millions of people doesn't exist.
aahortwwy 5y ago
This is why Literacy-as-a-Service startups continue to find success.
pessimizer 5y ago
The English language is very difficult to read and write because its sounds have only a vaguely poetic relationship to their various representations on paper. For historical reasons it's a language that not only borrowed 95% of its words, it will borrow another at the drop of a hat, and in its American form will insist that the proper way to both pronounce and spell that word is the way it was pronounced and spelled in the language it was borrowed from (if they use a Roman alphabet.) All the talk in this thread casting the blame on "standards" being lowered is bizarre. I'm not sure how pushing more poor kids to drop out is going to make people more literate. edit: the real shame comparatively should be how high Chinese literacy is when faced with an equally difficult writing system. China isn't at all confused about whether public education is a good thing, though, so you'd expect superior outcomes there.
honkycat 5y ago
Most years I read 50+ books a year. 2021 and 2020? Maybe 10 total. Part of it is I just don't know what to read lately! I look at lists of books and cannot decide! I wish there was a place I could go and find recommendations by authors I admire. The other part? No bars or coffee shops! I love the bustle of a crowded room full of people. If I get bored with the book, I can order another beer, or eavesdrop on a nearby conversation. Covid has taken that away, and I am trapped in my distraction filled room! I guess there is a THIRD reason: I've been learning guitar for the past year, and that has eaten up a lot of my time.
missedthecue 5y ago
I'll never forget the time a few years ago when I was on a support call with a client who happened to be a member of the administration staff at one of the largest school districts in the US. After about 20 minutes of frustration, I realized that the problem was that she couldn't read, and she was trying not to admit it. I got the hint and figured out a different way to solve the issue. I looked through her files and sure enough her signature was literally an illegible scribble with a smiley face. And this was a member of the staff. In a school district! Blew my mind.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dang 5y ago
This submission has an egregiously editorialized title, which is against the site guidelines for good reason: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." As a result, we got a tedious, dumbed-down, inflammatory and supercilious discussion. Just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  FWIW, I've attempted submissions of the underlying US Dept. Ed. study numerous times under its own title with no traction: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=by%3Adredmorbius%20literacy https://hn.algolia.com/?q=by%3Adredmorbius%20literacy
- vmception 5y ago
  clickbait works, actual title doesn’t, solution?
  - dang 5y ago
    One way is to find a better article on the topic. If it's an important topic, there is surely more than one gateway into it. Conversely, if there's literally only one article available on a topic, the odds that it's both on topic for HN and has a clickbait title are maybe relatively low. Another approach is to post a first comment to the thread, explaining what you think is significant in the article. That can help.
dfilppi 5y ago
garren 5y ago
The citation for that statistic is from a Forbes article that itself doesn’t actually cite a source beyond stating “According to the U.S. Department of Education.”
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NCES 2019-179, JULY 2019 Adult Literacy in the United States https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734146

166 points by pkrecker 5y ago

Why would anybody be surprised by this? Look around. People, by and large, are not very capable to begin with, poorly educated, and disinterested. In an earlier age, it was common for newspapers to target a 7th grade reading level.

mym1990 5y ago
I would slightly disagree: people ARE extremely capable but certainly lower education levels and disinterest or interest in harmful topics make the former harder to accomplish.

exolymph 5y ago

Relevant classic from 2009: https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-realize.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-rea...

ben_w 5y ago
Those examples suggest normal people compare poorly against what I’ve seen from GPT-3, so I have to wonder why? Is GPT-3 actually better, and the tests saying it’s still worse than human because the humans GPT-3 was compared against are WEIRD[0]? Or are the examples in your link cherry-picked? [0] Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic; although in this case “educated” may be sufficient: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias
- pjscott 5y ago
  From what I remember from my high school classmates -- and I went to a good Midwestern school, filled with unusually smart people! -- GPT-3 does indeed produce ASCII character sequences that sound better than my human classmates did. GPT-3 understands more about our world and how we live, even though it doesn't actually understand anything about anything. It's unnerving.
woodruffw 5y ago
I, for one, think it's fantastically unaware (at best, naive?) of Robin Hanson to assert that smart people tend to assume that others are smart. Overcoming Bias, indeed. (To poke at this more substantively: Hanson's evidence tests L1-English reading comprehension, not how "stupid" someone is. Somewhere around 70 million Americans don't even speak English at home.)

nomorecommas 5y ago

And they vote. Go figure. Maybe schools should teach literacy skills and other useful subjects. Just a thought.

tamaharbor 5y ago
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  - Arnt 5y ago
    Citation needed.
    - weatherlight 5y ago
      https://citationsneeded.medium.com https://citationsneeded.medium.com You're welcome.
  - csdvrx 5y ago
    Leaving asides the offense/racist grandparent comments, the worship of money is what has made America prosperous, and what still allows us to get the best and the brightest. Ask "them enlightened" Europeans (or Australians or...) how much they make, and rejoice we get to live a prosperous life here in America! And no, before someone says "but what about universal healthcare?", health insurance doesn't count, because if you work at a normal job, you get that, and if you don't, the ER never refuses anyone thanks to our legal system which you also disparage.
    - yardie 5y ago
      The European countries who never fulfill their annual US visa allotments; to the chagrin of Chinese and Indian visa seekers who are facing almost a decade long wait. The disparities in salaries are pretty much isolated to tech. Most other occupations are pretty much similar all things considered.

savant_penguin 5y ago

It's interesting that one of the richest countries on earth has such low education standards

okamiueru 5y ago
An uneducated population is easier to persuade to vote against its own interests.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  What's the difference between voting against one's own interests and voting with one's conscience instead of one's wallet?
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    None if your "conscience" is installed by capitalist propaganda.
    - adolph 5y ago
      Well, if you can’t read you probably have partial immunity to capitalist propaganda.
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        Much propaganda avoids reliance on written distribution.
newsbinator 5y ago
The richest countries, like the richest companies, are rich enough to coast for decades on past accomplishments, usually until external competition causes a problem.
- thundergolfer 5y ago

sambroner 5y ago

It's hard to tell from Wikipedia what the 6th-grade reading level is and how its measured. Google points me to Flesch Reading Ease. Not a very precise formula... If I remember correctly, the NYTimes is written for the 8th-grade level. Similarly, many hospitals/healthcare facilities don't allow writing above the 8th-grade level. So, expressive, detailed, and stylized writing are all easily possible at the 8th-grade level. In fact, I probably write at the 8th-grade level, albeit less clearly. What's the gap between an 8th grade reader and a 6th grade reader?

mumblemumble 5y ago
I believe that, when we're talking about the reading level publications target, that's typically evaluated using a linear combination of the average words per sentence, and the average syllables per word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_tests#Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_grade_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabi... If so, then the difference between 8th and 6th grade level works out to about 0.17 syllables per word, or about 5 words per sentence, or some blend of the two. So the gist would seem to be, don't be like me; use periods instead of commas and semicolons, and don't use a word like "orthography" when a word like "spelling" will do. I doubt that that this is what the department of education was looking at when they assessed adult prose literacy, though. But I'm having a bugger of a time tracking that down, too. I'm not sure that I agree with Wikipedia that a Forbes article that doesn't properly cite its own source is an acceptable citation for that figure.
- gjs278 5y ago
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>What's the gap between an 8th grade reader and a 6th grade reader? They can both interpret the instructions on the side of an AT4 but the 8th grader will be able to tell you that it did not have any alliterations, foreshadowing, or personification. People always forget that at some point in middle school "getting better at reading" stops being about interpreting the literal meanings of sentences and paragraphs and starts being about spotting and understanding the more advanced structures that makes for good creative writing and (outside some wordplay the advertising department engages in) is completely superfluous to what it takes to transact business.

pseudo0 5y ago

Looking at the original PIAAC data source (https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/ https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/skillsmap/), it looks like the level one or below counties are pretty strongly correlated with proximity to the southern border... How many of those people were educated in the US system, or are eligible to vote? Also, in the future maybe submit the primary data source, rather than a Wikipedia link that cites a Forbes article?

woodruffw 5y ago
This is the key observation: these surveys aim to determine the general English literacy of the American workforce. You don't have to be a US citizen or a voter, or even an English speaker to work in this country. A more accurate metric would be "prose literacy in the individual's at-home spoken language," which would probably yield a significantly less drastic picture. Perhaps not the best one, but nowhere near as eye grabbing as "54% of Americans can't read beyond a middle school level."
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Still, it is interesting to look at questions that most people failed. Apparently in the 2003 round of evaluations only 16% of participants could answer the question "What is the purpose of the Se Habla Espanol expo?" after reading this short magazine article. https://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/sample_imgtxtequiv.asp?Imageid=164 https://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/sample_imgtxtequiv.asp?Imageid=164
  - jakear 5y ago
    I love that the article I presume you got that from [1] states: > Acceptable answers include statement such as: > To enable people to better serve and sell to the Hispanic community; to improve marketing strategies to the Hispanic community; and to enable people to establish contacts to serve the Hispanic community. Which is not only grammatically incorrect, but grammatically incorrect to the point of message-shattering ambiguity. Is the triplet of statements required for an acceptable answer, or would any individual statement from that list suffice? If all three would be required I doubt I'd have been marked correct - I would have just listed the most important one then moved on to the next question. [1] https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-realize.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/stupider-than-you-rea... (first search result for "Se Habla Español Hits Chicago" besides the link you gave)

karaterobot 5y ago

Based on the level of reading and writing comprehension in the average HN thread, I would say we should practice more humility than I'm seeing in this thread so far.

dotnet00 5y ago
I agree, I honestly thought the people here would be better than this
- ozzythecat 5y ago
  The irony is that HN posters are vehemently against social media, particularly FB. The reasons I’ve read are all about the general negativity, pessimism, false information, etc. While HN submissions are generally held to a higher standard, the general comments/discussions are equally toxic. Apparently FB is such a cancer and everyone else is such a problem - but we’re actually part of the problem.
  - throwntoday 5y ago
    I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. Discourse should be no holds barred. If your points can't stand unfiltered scrutiny maybe they're not as solid as you think. I consider HN somewhere between 4chan and reddit. People here are actually smart (unlike reddit, which appears to attract angsty teenagers more than anything) and willing to engage in discussions outside of the status quo. It's not the chaotic jungle of 4chan, but if you're talking out of your ass people here are too clever to fall for it and you will be called out. On reddit if something sounds right to enough people who know nothing at all about said topic, it will get upvoted to the top where more people will absorb blatantly false information or self-fellating, pandering opinion.
    - nusaru 5y ago
      > I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. I could be wrong but I think the purpose of being civil is so that people will actually want to talk to you.

maybecrypto 5y ago

Well that would certainly explain the meme culture.

Mistletoe 5y ago
And how hard it has been to get people to do common sense things like wear a mask or get a vaccine. A sixth grader's brain in an adult's body can't understand why they need to do anything, nor any data we could give them that explains why.

mrfusion 5y ago

Most of my professional life involved continually being surprised how little most people actually read.

BrissyCoder 5y ago
As in reading for pleasure?
- blacksmith_tb 5y ago
  Presumably - I have often wondered how much more we all read and write now compared to people 50yr ago (even if a lot of it is in Slack / email / SMS etc.) It does appear that reading books for pleasure is gradually trending down in the US[1] unfortunately, but in terms of raw words read or written, I would think that we're doing a lot more online than we used to do off... 1: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/01/book-reading-2016/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/01/book-reading...
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    There's a substantial difference between reading short takes and longer, complex texts. Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book illustrates this in the multiple levels of reading it describes. Critical and synoptic reading of complex works is a developed skill.
- mrfusion 5y ago
  Mostly writing emails and being shocked no one read them. I’m now a two bullet point max kind of emailer.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Same here. Now if I need to ask someone about something over email I only include a single question per email Because you can be sure that only one will get answered and the rest are just ignored.

redwood 5y ago

Honestly does the average reader here know the word "prose"?

rahimnathwani 5y ago

In California, <50% of 8th graders meet the state's standard for 8th grade literacy.[0] Many schools in Califonia use an unproven/inferior method/curriculum for teaching literacy, based on the work of F&P.[1] [0] https://caaspp-elpac.cde.ca.gov/caaspp/DashViewReport?ps=true&lstTestYear=2019&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstSchoolType=A&lstGrade=13&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000 https://caaspp-elpac.cde.ca.gov/caaspp/DashViewReport?ps=tru... [1] https://www.apmreports.org/story/2021/11/19/fountas-pinnell-disproven-childrens-reading-theory https://www.apmreports.org/story/2021/11/19/fountas-pinnell-...

mumblemumble 5y ago
It's hard to know what to make of that figure without knowing how the standard is set, though. I have no idea how California does it, but it's not uncommon to define the grade levels as the median score kids in that grade get on the test. And 50% of kids scoring below the median would only be a worrisome result in the Lake Wobegon school system.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  ELPAC test scores have 4 bands, including 'meet expectations' and 'exceed expectations'. The % of kids who are expected to (at least) 'meet expectations' is, by definition, 100%. But the actual rate is less than half that. These tests aren't difficult by design. They're not graded on a curve, forcing the pass rate to be ~50%. Please take a look at sample tests and judge for yourself: https://www.compton.k12.ca.us/media/5234/elpac_grades-6-8_practice-test.pdf https://www.compton.k12.ca.us/media/5234/elpac_grades-6-8_pr...
mistrial9 5y ago
many people here have not gone to public school with people who do not learn to read and write at basic levels. Please let me inform you, its not due to "unfair testing" -- lack of adult literacy is very real.
- mistrial9 5y ago

HEmanZ 5y ago

Wikipedia happily reports that North Korea has a 100% adult proficient literacy rate. Cuba has a 99.9% rate. Brazil 98%, all leaps and bounds beyond any western country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_... The US is certainly behind much of the world in education, but these metrics are really hard gauge accurately. Diving in to where these numbers come from and how they compare to the rest of the world, I'm finding that no one tracks this in any way that we can really draw a conclusion across countries. I also see other commentors jumping to trashing schools or the education system for this. Does a flat number really point to education? What about poverty levels, general cultural attitudes towards literacy, accounting and definition of proficiency, etc. I have no numbers to back this, but I felt growing up that the biggest problem with education was not the schools or education system, but the students and the general culture around education. Students and their parents just did not care at all about education, most (adult and kid) were actively hostile towards it. There is only so much an education system can do if 1/3 to 1/2 of the students will do absolutely everything they can to not learn, and their parents encourage them not to learn. Some completely anecdotal examples from my childhood: - In high school I had a friend who's dad flew into a rage when he suggested he wanted to try going to college, because college was the devil (it'll turn you into a liberal sissy, they just steel your money, James down the street fixes motorcycles and don't need no degree, you think you're soooo much better than us, etc.). This attitude was only slightly more extreme than most in the town. And it didn't just apply to college, it applied to anyone who wanted to do any kind of academic learning. - I have distinct memories of being ridiculed by multiple full-grown adults (!!) when my parents took me to math competitions, for being a loser nerd. Some were serious and meant it, others maybe weren't serious but thought it was funny to ridicule. - I remember bringing a book to read while my mom worked, when I was 8 years old, and having someone (again, a full grown adult) who told me to stop reading in public because it might get me beat up. - At school in general, many students never got punished by their parents for skipping school or failing. The school would bend over backward trying to help them in every way reasonable, but what do you do if half your students do everything they can to not learn? Threaten to punish with suspension? Many parents treated it as "who cares, school is dumb anyways". No amount of effort into the education system could solve what I grew up around, it's a lot more insidious. Maybe I'm from a uniquely shitty part of the country tho, maybe most of the US would benefit from more focus on the education system itself, I wouldn't know. But I feel like I hear similar stories from others who grew up around the decaying rust belt, the collapsing small towns that scattered around the midwest, and inner city schools in places like Kansas City and OKC.

nickdothutton 5y ago

Dont feel too bad. The UK state school system is similarly bad. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/03/literacy-white-working-class-boys-h-is-for-harry https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/03/literacy-w...

robbrown451 5y ago

There's a strange circularity to the title. It's almost like saying "90% of Americans have below median literacy skills." In that one it is obviously false, since we define median as being at 50-percentile. But this is not a lot different. To me "6th grade reading level" should mean "the reading skills of a 50-percentile 6th grader." But then the statement can't be true, unless you accept that the typical 6th grader is just as good at reading as a typical adult. So.... how do you define "6th-grade reading level"? It seems that you are left with defining it as what you might wish it were. Which is going to vary widely.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> So.... how do you define "6th-grade reading level"? The standard required to pass the 6th grade, I guess? Possibly people are reading at that level but then forget how to do it later in life? That's definitely the case with for example knowledge of maths.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  But obviously they did pass 6th grade. I mean, where does the standard come from? Does it have nothing to do with what the typical student in a typical school is able to accomplish? If not, it is just arbitrary and meaningless.
- Edman274 5y ago
  Or, they never attained a 6th grade reading level and our teachers and standardized tests allowed them to still graduate high school, because failing to get a high school diploma virtually guarantees someone will be in poverty for the rest of their life?

rsync 5y ago

... but high levels of poetry, right ?

elil17 5y ago

This seems false. The linked article that Wikipedia cites Forbes attributes that claim to the Department of Education, but doesn’t point to a specific report. The linked article does talk about a specific reading comprehension test called the PIACC, but that’s not the same as reading levels.

gshubert17 5y ago
The first sentence in the Wikipedia article cites a link (citation #1) to https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf "Report on Adult Literacy in the United States" published in July 2019. This is a two-page PDF that describes the survey, literacy levels, and has links to additional references. The second Wikipedia citation is to a Forbes article.

pants-no-pants 5y ago

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Well, what do you know about that! These forty years now I’ve been speaking in prose without knowing it!

dataviz1000 5y ago

I couldn't write a coherent sentence until I was 24 years old. A couple years after high school I discovered reading starting with "Cannery Row" however it still took significant effort to learn to write despite thousands of hours of reading. Once I understood the basic mechanics of grammar, fitting words into meaningful structures became second nature. I still can't spell the word coherent without assistance from a spell checker, nevertheless, I write and communicate the meaning I intend to convey. People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities. Sure teachers especially in public schools are over worked, however, what happened to me is abuse. It was always I who failed and never the teachers or my parents who strangely both have PhDs. The onus to understand how to learn was the responsibility of a child and not the adults. We expect children who fail to understand pedagogy? They told me to think harder, to work harder. What does it mean to think harder? I suffered anxiety attacks and mental breakdowns trying to keep up. They ushered me along through graduation because I never had antisocial behavioral problems. I taught myself a trade so I could survive. Then taught myself how to write. Then taught myself a second trade for fun and a third. At some point, I'll change my focus to educational software. There have been several individuals, groups, and initiatives over the past few decades since I graduated who have developed amazing tools I wish existed when I was in school with the Khan Academy at the top of that list. Nonetheless, the people at the Khan Academy who designed their course on grammar also happen to be people who are naturally talented at grammar, the fundamental crux teaching. I have one paradoxical advantage: my disadvantage which plagues every working moment gives me a perspective nobody has, er, correction, 46% of people who also happen to be the people doing the teaching with higher education degrees don't have. One thing is for sure, I would be an idiot to expect a child to solve pedagogy for her or his self. When children fall behind they give up, they don't contemplate the philosophy of how they learn.

travisjungroth 5y ago
> People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities. People are probably hostile because you're going against scientific consensus and saying a range of disabilities that affects millions of people doesn't exist.

aahortwwy 5y ago

This is why Literacy-as-a-Service startups continue to find success.

pessimizer 5y ago

The English language is very difficult to read and write because its sounds have only a vaguely poetic relationship to their various representations on paper. For historical reasons it's a language that not only borrowed 95% of its words, it will borrow another at the drop of a hat, and in its American form will insist that the proper way to both pronounce and spell that word is the way it was pronounced and spelled in the language it was borrowed from (if they use a Roman alphabet.) All the talk in this thread casting the blame on "standards" being lowered is bizarre. I'm not sure how pushing more poor kids to drop out is going to make people more literate. edit: the real shame comparatively should be how high Chinese literacy is when faced with an equally difficult writing system. China isn't at all confused about whether public education is a good thing, though, so you'd expect superior outcomes there.

honkycat 5y ago

Most years I read 50+ books a year. 2021 and 2020? Maybe 10 total. Part of it is I just don't know what to read lately! I look at lists of books and cannot decide! I wish there was a place I could go and find recommendations by authors I admire. The other part? No bars or coffee shops! I love the bustle of a crowded room full of people. If I get bored with the book, I can order another beer, or eavesdrop on a nearby conversation. Covid has taken that away, and I am trapped in my distraction filled room! I guess there is a THIRD reason: I've been learning guitar for the past year, and that has eaten up a lot of my time.

missedthecue 5y ago

I'll never forget the time a few years ago when I was on a support call with a client who happened to be a member of the administration staff at one of the largest school districts in the US. After about 20 minutes of frustration, I realized that the problem was that she couldn't read, and she was trying not to admit it. I got the hint and figured out a different way to solve the issue. I looked through her files and sure enough her signature was literally an illegible scribble with a smiley face. And this was a member of the staff. In a school district! Blew my mind.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dang 5y ago

This submission has an egregiously editorialized title, which is against the site guidelines for good reason: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." As a result, we got a tedious, dumbed-down, inflammatory and supercilious discussion. Just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dredmorbius 5y ago
FWIW, I've attempted submissions of the underlying US Dept. Ed. study numerous times under its own title with no traction: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=by%3Adredmorbius%20literacy https://hn.algolia.com/?q=by%3Adredmorbius%20literacy
vmception 5y ago
clickbait works, actual title doesn’t, solution?
- dang 5y ago
  One way is to find a better article on the topic. If it's an important topic, there is surely more than one gateway into it. Conversely, if there's literally only one article available on a topic, the odds that it's both on topic for HN and has a clickbait title are maybe relatively low. Another approach is to post a first comment to the thread, explaining what you think is significant in the article. That can help.

dfilppi 5y ago

garren 5y ago

The citation for that statistic is from a Forbes article that itself doesn’t actually cite a source beyond stating “According to the U.S. Department of Education.”

dredmorbius 5y ago
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NCES 2019-179, JULY 2019 Adult Literacy in the United States https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734146