New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨zoe@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨aboringdystopia@lemmy.world⁩

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cross-posted from: lemmit.online/post/1006130

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The original was posted on /r/aboringdystopia by /u/Last_Salad_5080 on 2023-10-03 14:21:04.

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yokonzo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
To play devils advocate, is this really a huge issue? As a construction worker friend of mine put it quite plainly, Most Americans don’t really need to be able to read anything more comprehensive than street signs to do their jobs, a 6th grade reading level is pretty proficient, maybe a bit slower but it gets the job done

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- railsdev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That’s great within the context a construction worker’s job.
  
  But what about outside the job? Things like taxes, being able to determine the truthfulness of things you read online, etc?
  
  Is this guy just working 24/7 with no need to read outside of work ever?
  
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- Asifall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Well if our democracy is predicated on the idea that the populace governs itself, then the populous is being governed by people with a sixth grade reading level.
  
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- MadBob@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Man, don’t you hope for a richer life than just being able to do things for your work though?
  
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  - yokonzo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Personally I do but my point is, plenty of people do not, and they’re perfectly happy that way.
    
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- TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It matters because being a responsible citizen in a democracy requires having good enough critical thinking and reasoning skills so as not to be easily misled or manipulated by bad-faith actors. If you can’t read well, and it’s not due to something like dyslexia, it speaks to your ability to follow complex ideas and fact-patterns and themes which in turn means that you’re more likely to make poor political decisions.
  
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Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
what's the concrete advantage of the average person reading at a high level is, past some sort of weird elitism?

they clearly haven't needed the skill in their lives, or their reading level wouldn't have "atrophied" over time, so what's the point?

i also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised

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- SeducingCamel@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  High reading level shouldn’t be elitist, we should strive to have a well educated population
  
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  - Bipta@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It's really weird to call a 7th grade reading level or better elitism in the first place, and calling it "weird elitism" is even worse.
    
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  - Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You don't want a well-educated population for the sake of having a well-educated population. You want it so that you can have a productive population. And clearly, a high reading level isn't required to be a productive member of society since otherwise reading level wouldn't drop over time like this figure is implying.
    
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  - MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Sorry to say but society works by hierarchies, some people deserve more than others.
    
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- Shapillon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’m not sure I’d trust someone who reads like a 11/12 yo with signing potentially life changing (not in a good way) contracts.
  
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  - Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I don't care how good your reading level is: unless you've studied law, you shouldn't trust anybody but a lawyer to correctly parse a life-changing contract.
    
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- darq@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Poorly educated people are more susceptible to manipulation, misinformation, and propaganda. And a low reading level is both an indication of a poor educational level, and an impediment to a person educating themselves further.
  
  Reading is a fundamental skill in the modern world.
  
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  - Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Clearly reading above a 6th-grade level isn't a fundamental skill in the modern world, or 54% of American adults wouldn't be able to function in it.
    
    Being able to parse a long sentence filled with long words has absolutely no bearing on your susceptibility to propaganda.
    
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- IHeartBadCode@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  what's the concrete advantage of the average person reading at a high level is
  
  Sixth grade reading is being able to extract information from written word. Below that grade level, you're basically reading words but none of them need to have logical impact on some greater theme or topic. Sixth grade reading level is the ability to read things that matter. Eighth grade reading is reading at a level where you can apply introspection to the underlying theme or topic that's being extracted from the written word.
  
  So, and this is simply my opinion, I believe it is important to be able to read things and understand how they apply to one's self in a logical manner. The ability to extract the impact that the particular piece has is critical to subsequently applying that introspective quality to the piece. So, yes, I believe being able to read at sixth grade level is incredibly important. It is difficult to understand how something applies to you if you cannot correctly extract what the point that is being discussed, actually is, in the first place.
  
  they clearly haven't needed the skill in their lives
  
  Well a lot of everyday life is not present in those terms. Your employer does not sit there and go "this machine is big enough to stick a arm into it and applies enough pressure to remove that arm from your body" without also following it up with "so do not stick your arm into this machine." In fact, legal requirements likely dictate a "DO NOT STICK ARM INTO MACHINE" or something similar sign right beside the machine.
  
  There is a massive difference between the utility as a function of labor and employment and utility as a function of operating within a society. So do try to apply this at say a social level. Employers can change the condition of the environment one works in to accommodate a lot of leeway. So do try to think of it less in "what does this higher reading level provide in objective utility in a work environment?"
  
  i also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised
  
  Well that is interesting that you bring that up because rote memorization of multiplication is third grade level stuff. Things like "all things multiplied by two are even" is higher grade thinking. There is actually a point where you stop thinking of multiplication as some table to be memorized and start seeing it as a pattern that has deeper meaning.
  
  If I add a zero to the end of a number, "3 to 30 or 45 to 450" I have multiplied that by 10, and that has a deeper meaning all over in various engineering domain. In computer terms we call that bit shifting and there's optimizations in rendering pipelines and memory access that comes from this deeper understanding of multiplication. Or things like (x,y) coordinates, it is easy to just think of it as plotting point on a grid, but at some point you obtain a deeper meaning and start seeing (x,y) as (r,θ) and you begin to have an understanding of vectors and that understanding is critical to literally everything that might have to traverse your GPU. Want to change the heading of an airplane? You can do vector addition to know exactly what will happen when you change that heading.
  
  And even then you stop seeing exactness of math and start seeing the general patterns of it. You begin to understand this kind of change in this variable has this kind of effect. And you can pick that kind of feeling up with on the job training no doubt. But with a deeper understanding of math you begin to understand more than what on the job training can give you, because you can break those actions down into more mathematical terms that can be manipulated easily within your mind, rather than the good old trail and error method (which obviously wouldn't be a good method for an airplane that you are currently flying).
  
  There is also more to it that the surface level implications of education. Yes, we can just look at the surface level stuff and conclude that the "real" world reigns supreme. But having that deeper understanding, be it in written word or mathematical eloquence, gives us a richer understanding of the world we live in. Gives us more access to the potential of this world. We do per se "need it", much like we don't pre se need things like medicine, refrigerators, guns, bulldozers, and what not. Our ancestors did without them for countless years. But having that deeper meaning gives us access to things that we would otherwise not have. This nice world we have of comfort is not a product of it being forced upon us, it is a side result of various people who went further than the surface level understanding of this world that was routinely offered.
  
  So if you are curious of the advantage, look around you. That is the advantage.
  
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- Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This wouldn't be a problem except all of those people who don't read good are allowed to vote.
  
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  - Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    This just sounds like weird elitism. What correlation is there between voting and reading at a high level?
    
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- LarryTheMatador@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  My understanding of the matter is the risk of low literacy can lead people to write things like your exact post. Which is to say to be so dense as to not even understand the benefits of not being dense.
  
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- marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  For me personally, it seems like reading comprehension is a pretty necessary skill. Between social media, texting, email, etc we are reading more than ever. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to jump on a call because some colleague has misinterpreted or misrepresented something from an email.
  
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  - Primarily0617@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Media literacy and reading comprehension are important skills, but unless I'm (ironically) mistaken, it doesn't look like they form part of a text's "reading level".
    
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- Hyperreality@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  the average person reading at a high level is, past some sort of weird elitism?
  
  An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for the survival of a free people.
  
  People who can't read well, can't easily learn further skills, fact check, do proper research, and invariably lack the ability to do proper critical thinking.
  
  The end result is gullible stupid people, making stupid decisions. People who think research involves watching youtube/tiktok videos.
  
  also don't particularly care how well the average adult has their multiplication tables memorised
  
  I don't think memorising multiplication tables is a thing anymore, but if you can't do basic calculations, you're an easy mark for many businesses.
  
  Teaching people to read, write, and do basic maths is about making them self-reliant.
  
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- the_q@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Wow…
  
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- Bipta@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You can vote for non-wolves and prevent destroying the planet.
  
  I agree it's not necessary for immediate survival, but long term.
  
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- theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Reading at an xx level isn’t about using fancy words, it’s about reading comprehension. English is a super ambiguous language…
  
  Case in point, the first half of my post is probably about a 6th grade reading level. A fourth grade reader would probably know all the words but struggle to understand my point, a sixth grade reader would understand I’m saying that reading level is important to correctly understand the meaning, and a college level reader would understand that plus understand the implication that English is a poorly designed language that was shaped to promote intellectual elitism
  
  And now I’m just going to spell out the fact that humans communicate at a steady rate through spoken word regardless of sounds per minute - “dumber” people don’t necessarily express less using slang or simple word choices, they just miss out on the full meaning
  
  I could explain all this so anyone who can tie their shoes could understand all of this, but a high enough reading comprehension means I could have stopped at the first paragraph and all of the meaning would have gotten across… Being a charitable reader is a big part of the equation, as is a certain level of general knowledge
  
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- SCB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  People who don’t read well, or often, literally think less effectively than people who do.
  
  Reading isn’t just a hobby for nerds, it’s critical to advancing your own ability to think above an animal level.
  
  There’s a reason all of the smartest people you know read and the dumbest people you know do not.
  
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iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
We’re really due.

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admiralteal@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I'm pretty skeptical that modern standards for determining reading grade level are even meaningful anymore.

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