5 ms·

I think the most important thing for literacy is a nationwide culture of reading. That has stopped existing over the last decades. Parents do not read and so n

I think the most important thing for literacy is a nationwide culture of reading. That has stopped existing over the last decades. Parents do not read and so neither do their children. Reading is now a niche hobby. If you visit a book store you will also find out that most "readers" are a very niche group, who mostly read genre fiction or crime slop. The amount of people actually reading intellectually challenging literature is miniscule. Is it any surprise to have an illiteracy problem in a country where nobody reads?

WolfeReader 1y ago
"We should read fewer books that I don't like, and more books that I do like." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fiction-triggers-poorer-reading-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fictio...
- constantcrying 1y ago
  I have read maybe a thousand books of fantasy or science fiction, including 10k pages long fantasy series. Some of it was good, but most of it was pure slop. People read for a variety of reasons and I am not saying that people should not be reading their genre fiction slop. But to a culture of reading belongs the idea that reading challenging works is also important and that a deeper meaning is to be found in classical works. If we want a society which reads we need books which are more than movies without images. We need to tell adults that reading is a worthwhile endeavor, especially when reading complex material. Only then literacy can rise again, because only then will people believe that it is important to be able to read.
  - WolfeReader 1y ago
    Who is it that distinguishes the "slop" (you love that word) from the complex? You seem to be focused on the idea of genre, which is orthagonal to the quality of the prose, the depth of the characters, the complexity of the themes, etc. You might as well focus on the size of the font.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      >Who is it that distinguishes the "slop" (you love that word) from the complex? Why do you just completely ignore what I say? The answer is already part of my last response to you. Again, the distinction is the why if you read it for entertainment it is slop. Most of genre fiction is terrible slop which totally fails at "quality of the prose, the depth of the characters, the complexity of the themes, etc.". You should ask yourself why you are so upset by this distinction. Classics are books which stood the test of time, which have been read for hundreds if not thousands of years. Engaging with that or the 1 millionth Harry Potter clone, magical school romance, is incomparable.
      - WolfeReader 1y ago
        You're making three distinctions here and lumping them all into one. Let me check my understanding here. To you, for a book to be worthwhile, it must satisfy 3 criteria: 1. It must be "complex". 2. It must be over 100 years old. 3. The reader must seek it out for reasons other than entertainment. The first one sounds good on paper, but I ask again (and observe how you tried to dodge the question): WHO defines which books are considered "complex"? The second one is baffling. Certainly if a book is still sought out centuries after being read, it is probably good! But this also rejects the idea that anyone writing in the 21st century - or most of the 20th, for that matter - is at all worthy of consideration. I don't think we're going to create a culture of literacy by rejecting everything modern. And the third, the real bee in your bonnet, the idea that people would seek out a book for entertainment, read it, and be entertained. You claim to want a culture of literacy, but you've spent more words bashing the fiction of Sanderson and Scalzi and King (and the readers thereof) than on the increasing number of non-readers this topic is about. If Sanderson recommended that his fans read The Odyssey, or King recommended Poe, their readers would surely seek them out to be entertained, right? Does that eliminate Homer and Poe from your consideration? You want to create a "literate society" which treats reading as an exercise in self-flagellation. Like giving yourself homework. I don't think this will work. Say what you will about Rowling (and I will: she sucks!) but she got kids reading, and interested in mythology, for a good number of years. Notably before the rise of social media.
filchermcurr 1y ago
It also doesn't help when we have programs like Accelerated Reader. The original goal of the program, from what I understand, was to encourage reading by rewarding kids for succeeding at reaching goals. Unfortunately, schools decided rewarding was bad and punishing was good. So instead of being an optional reward-driven approach, it became a mandatory part of your grade. This sort of thing makes kids resent reading. Especially kids, like me, who were given extremely unrealistic goals to meet because they happen to have a high reading level. Plus you're restricted to books that are: 1. Your exact reading level. 2. In your school library. 3. Have A.R. tests available. That, especially in smaller schools, is an extremely difficult set of criteria for meeting a goal. It made me HATE reading because there were no books of any interest to me, but I had to read the most bizarre (and, frankly, age inappropriate) things to meet the goal and get a good grade. Bring back Pizza Hut and toss A.R. back in hell where it came from.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  I always hated school assigned reading. I could not really tell you why though. At the same time I was a very avid reader, who spend a lot of time reading books.
- skulk 1y ago
  Even treating it as a purely optional reward didn't work, at least for me. I remember doing AR and treating it like a game -- find the most points-dense book possible in the school library (for me it was The Hobbit, a whopping 70 points), read a summary of it online to get the details and ace the test. All without even opening the book. Well, I actually did try reading The Hobbit but I couldn't make it past the handful of pages without falling asleep.

WolfeReader 1y ago

"We should read fewer books that I don't like, and more books that I do like." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fiction-triggers-poorer-reading-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fictio...

constantcrying 1y ago
I have read maybe a thousand books of fantasy or science fiction, including 10k pages long fantasy series. Some of it was good, but most of it was pure slop. People read for a variety of reasons and I am not saying that people should not be reading their genre fiction slop. But to a culture of reading belongs the idea that reading challenging works is also important and that a deeper meaning is to be found in classical works. If we want a society which reads we need books which are more than movies without images. We need to tell adults that reading is a worthwhile endeavor, especially when reading complex material. Only then literacy can rise again, because only then will people believe that it is important to be able to read.
- WolfeReader 1y ago
  Who is it that distinguishes the "slop" (you love that word) from the complex? You seem to be focused on the idea of genre, which is orthagonal to the quality of the prose, the depth of the characters, the complexity of the themes, etc. You might as well focus on the size of the font.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    >Who is it that distinguishes the "slop" (you love that word) from the complex? Why do you just completely ignore what I say? The answer is already part of my last response to you. Again, the distinction is the why if you read it for entertainment it is slop. Most of genre fiction is terrible slop which totally fails at "quality of the prose, the depth of the characters, the complexity of the themes, etc.". You should ask yourself why you are so upset by this distinction. Classics are books which stood the test of time, which have been read for hundreds if not thousands of years. Engaging with that or the 1 millionth Harry Potter clone, magical school romance, is incomparable.
    - WolfeReader 1y ago
      You're making three distinctions here and lumping them all into one. Let me check my understanding here. To you, for a book to be worthwhile, it must satisfy 3 criteria: 1. It must be "complex". 2. It must be over 100 years old. 3. The reader must seek it out for reasons other than entertainment. The first one sounds good on paper, but I ask again (and observe how you tried to dodge the question): WHO defines which books are considered "complex"? The second one is baffling. Certainly if a book is still sought out centuries after being read, it is probably good! But this also rejects the idea that anyone writing in the 21st century - or most of the 20th, for that matter - is at all worthy of consideration. I don't think we're going to create a culture of literacy by rejecting everything modern. And the third, the real bee in your bonnet, the idea that people would seek out a book for entertainment, read it, and be entertained. You claim to want a culture of literacy, but you've spent more words bashing the fiction of Sanderson and Scalzi and King (and the readers thereof) than on the increasing number of non-readers this topic is about. If Sanderson recommended that his fans read The Odyssey, or King recommended Poe, their readers would surely seek them out to be entertained, right? Does that eliminate Homer and Poe from your consideration? You want to create a "literate society" which treats reading as an exercise in self-flagellation. Like giving yourself homework. I don't think this will work. Say what you will about Rowling (and I will: she sucks!) but she got kids reading, and interested in mythology, for a good number of years. Notably before the rise of social media.

filchermcurr 1y ago

It also doesn't help when we have programs like Accelerated Reader. The original goal of the program, from what I understand, was to encourage reading by rewarding kids for succeeding at reaching goals. Unfortunately, schools decided rewarding was bad and punishing was good. So instead of being an optional reward-driven approach, it became a mandatory part of your grade. This sort of thing makes kids resent reading. Especially kids, like me, who were given extremely unrealistic goals to meet because they happen to have a high reading level. Plus you're restricted to books that are: 1. Your exact reading level. 2. In your school library. 3. Have A.R. tests available. That, especially in smaller schools, is an extremely difficult set of criteria for meeting a goal. It made me HATE reading because there were no books of any interest to me, but I had to read the most bizarre (and, frankly, age inappropriate) things to meet the goal and get a good grade. Bring back Pizza Hut and toss A.R. back in hell where it came from.

constantcrying 1y ago
I always hated school assigned reading. I could not really tell you why though. At the same time I was a very avid reader, who spend a lot of time reading books.
skulk 1y ago
Even treating it as a purely optional reward didn't work, at least for me. I remember doing AR and treating it like a game -- find the most points-dense book possible in the school library (for me it was The Hobbit, a whopping 70 points), read a summary of it online to get the details and ace the test. All without even opening the book. Well, I actually did try reading The Hobbit but I couldn't make it past the handful of pages without falling asleep.