Quick question, genuine question:
Why on earth does “more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level” not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?
Are the implications of it unclear????
I’m serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!
If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!
If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.
This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!
Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????
I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I’m completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.
Literacy can be broadly categorized into 3 groups. The ability to read words, the ability to read sentences or paragraphs, and the ability to texts a page or longer.
55% of US adults cannot read long texts.
The process of reading the individual sentences is so taxing due to this low literacy that actually synthesizing the total information presented becomes nearly impossible. It requires both holding onto the meaning of each sentence so that you can contextualize it with the next one, AND consciously going through the decode process of interpreting letter and word forms in that next sentence.
In general, children are expected to begin reading long texts for meaning around age 8-10, in elementary school. This is when kids normally swap from short stories to chaptered books.
55% of American adults under 30 cannot read at that level.
We know this not from some short term study or another, but from the collected data of the US Department of Education going back decades.
This is the same literacy data used internationally to determine literacy rates around the world, not some kind of shock study.
55% of American adults under 30 can’t read, and it’s explicitly, specifically because our schools refuse to teach them, and effectively haven’t been doing so for over a decade nationally and as much as 30 years in some states.
The knock on effects and implications of this are horrific.
I understand that this sounds like some fuckery bullshit because it’s such an unfathomably massive problem, but holy shit.
It’s very, VERY real.
@firecoloredwater I can’t see your replies while I write on mobile so I’m trying to just remember everything you mentioned. I hope this covered most of it?
But, basically, the reading skills to navigate an app menu or read a single sentence are not what’s being discussed. The skills to read a newspaper or book, however, are.
I saw this a few days ago and it’s been on my mind since.
I don’t even need to leave Tumblr to see failed literacy.
I’ve seen many people, just in the last couple of days, completely misunderstand something and read it in a hostile way based on their own biases rather than in anything the author said.
It’s weird and unpleasant when I go to fandom spaces and see someone completely misread a chapter. But when it comes to discussions on bigotry, politics, social justice? That ruins lives.
On a different note, I’ve started asking myself “am I sure I understand this” when reading dense texts, and taking a few extra seconds per paragraph to mentally summarize what I read to make sure I get it. So, thanks for making me a more conscientious reader, Vees.
(via feltelures)
