How are things with reading and writing?

15 comments

1. These stats are generally literacy in English and “literacy” refers to the ability to read, comprehend and compose at a certain level of complexity.

   Someone illiterate in that sense would have no issues with a menu or even using social media but they might struggle to make sense of a lease contract or to unpack literature fully.

   For obvious reasons a lot of immigrants aren’t at that level in English and of course some folks have learning disabilities and so on. The remainder…yeah, something went wrong in education. Not near as many as you’d think from the headline stat, though.

2. When they say can’t rad or write, they are referring to the English language. We get a lot of immigrants that come here, and some never learn to read or write English past a certain level because they either don’t see a need or simply cannot. That’s why there’s such a high number.

3. It would probably be good to cite your source. Different countries and reports define literacy differently.

4. I don’t know how to read but writing is coming along!

5. There’s something to understand about America- the cities make up most of the population. It’s easily show when you look at a political map and the country is almost complete red except for major cities which are all blue

   Similarly, urban environments have much lower literacy scores. Some reasons are high drop out rates, low parent involvement, drugs, poverty, English second language learners

   The US also has high standards for reading. My sons in second grade and can read fluently but is still slightly under where he should be for reading and is part of a group at school to boost that. So that 40% or whatever might be able to read but not up to whatever standardized testing threshold it is

   Further many disabled people cannot read or write which are boosting that number

6. Those stats usually refer to functional literacy, the ability to read and write complex texts. So not completely illiterate – a functionally illiterate person could still read a bus schedule, street signs, write short notes, sign their name etc – but would struggle to understand, say, a newspaper article or novel.

   There are very few people here, aside from those who just don’t know any English at all, who are totally unable to read or write English.

7. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that Covid really disrupted education here. But I don’t have a lot of hard data to back that up, and I’m not sure whether the U.S. fared significantly worse than other countries in that regard.

   If you do want to see some (pre-Covid) data, you can find our latest PISA score [here](https://hechingerreport.org/what-2018-pisa-international-rankings-tell-us-about-u-s-schools/). We actually performed very well in reading then. Better than the UK, Japan, Germany, Norway, etc.

8. I’m doing my best!

9. While it’s true that immigrants and people with disabilities may not know how to read or right and are counted in the stats. It’s also true that Covid hindered a bit of learning for younger students. Cobid also effectively put an end to the future of school is at home, cause it ain’t. Homeschooling is also becoming more popular and hurts kids more times than not. Then of course due to the extreme standards or hell even lack of standards in some cases some schools are put under causes students to just be passed through the system. Getting back to homeschool a lot of parents are not capable of homeschooling their kids and don’t want to believe it. My MIL is such a person. She pulled her kids out of school as she said it was because of how the youngest was acting. It’s a bullshit explanation, it’s probably because of her husband who believes every God damn conspiracy theory on the planet. Well the oldest thankfully got to a point in school to where he could read and write. The other two not so much. One is second grade in age, but can not read and can barely write. The other is kindergarten level and will most likely be in the same boat. They have no concept of time and seriously lack in social skills.

10. The things above about how literacy means a certain level of understanding are all true, but it’s also true that the US is having a lot of issues getting people to that level of literacy. There’s a great podcast called Sold a Story that goes into this, but essentially, in recent decades, a lot of teachers and school districts were taught a kind of reading curriculum that simply doesn’t work for most students. The result is, as expected, that we have an absolute crisis of literacy. Less than 35% of 4th graders were reading at or above grade level in 2022. There are definitely other factors, but the US, broadly, is also not teaching reading well even though a lot of effort is put into teaching it.

11. No, it’s not true.

12. No its not true at all, finding someone who cannot read or write is basically impossible in the United States, basically you have to look at Immigrant or refugee populations to find one.

13. I was a substitute teacher at a high school and we had graduating seniors reading at a 4th grade level. It’s pretty common. Kids get advanced until they quit or graduate. Likely they can read a McDonald’s menu but a book is probably right out.

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States?wprov=sfla1

    Turns out our standards of literacy are higher here than most of the world.

15. It’s becoming terrible . I’m lucky to live in an upper middle class area that has an excellent school district. They still really care about the kids learning . But it’s a mess in a lot of areas . Thing is , it’s the people that changed . The internet created generations of self indulgent, self obsessed , disrespectful, American hating atheists…. I could go on …. But the education didn’t change , aside from woke teachers indoctrinating their beliefs on the students …. Everybody now thinks they are so original and so important that everyone needs to know their opinion on everything … like I said , social
    Media is the cancer that caused everything to change