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About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

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Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#41

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #33

> Some of these high county-level percentages stem from high populations of immigrants, whose first language is not English. The PIAAC only assesses English literacy, though its background questionnaire is given in English and Spanish. If you look at the map (and read the article), it's fairly obvious that they are NOT adjusting for non-English first language speakers. This is partly on purpose since it's those demog…

It’s a study done by the US Dept of Education. I don’t think it’s bad or even unusual that it tests English (and some Spanish) only. The implication is it is testing useful literacy in the US. After all, being literate in Tagalog isn’t a useful thing in the US, so why call someone who is literate in Tagalog only literate for the US?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#42

Post by yorwba »

saagarjha wrote: post #35
yorwba wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On literacy? No. Math, physics, biology, chemistry, history, foreign languages? Sure.

Do you think they should be learning those using the vocabulary and comprehension skills of a 12 year old?

When you learn a new domain, you obviously need to learn the specialized vocabulary for that domain, whether you're 12 or 21. But I'd expect 12-year-olds to have the general vocabulary and comprehension skills to learn this specialized vocabulary from an introductory text explaining it to them.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#43

Post by dan-robertson »

I didn’t look into the details of the survey described in this article. A large international survey that covers literacy is PIAAC[1]. You can read about their ‘levels’ of literacy in one of their reader’s guides[2]. The survey suggested that 17.6% of adults in the US score at level 1 or below (basic vocabulary, ability to extract a single piece of information in a short text) and 12.8% of US adults score at level 4 or 5. People with low literacy tend to struggle with vocabulary, or large blocks of text, and will be slow readers who can’t skim text.

You can find some practical descriptions of low literacy in UX articles like https://uxpamagazine.org/people_who_do_not_read_easily/ or https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2016/02/23/writing-content-for-every...

[1] https://www.oecd.org/en/about/programmes/survey-of-adult-ski... [2] See pages 115-116 of https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/the-survey-of-adult-...

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#44

Post by csallen »

yorwba wrote: post #19

> more than half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 (54%) read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. This is framed as a bad thing, as if it is somehow self-evident that sixth-graders are intellectually deficient and illiterate. But if you turn it around as "sixth graders read about as well as the median adult," it doesn't sound so bad anymore, does it? In any case, criticism of recent education polici…

It says that 54% read below a sixth-grade level, not at a sixth-grade level. So even if you were to genuinely think that sixth graders are impressive readers, that would matter little, because most of the country is worse. Presumably you need to be comparing them to 5th graders, maybe even 3rd or 4th graders.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#45

Post by ArnoVW »

saagarjha wrote: post #31
karles wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media. What's the use of "reading" anymore? It's not like it's hard for us outsiders to spot why your general political and social environment in the US is going haywire.

Guess what kind of site you're on

You’re not wrong. But have you considered the difference between mainstream social media (video postings of 15-30 seconds) with HN (share a complex or long article, then have a text debate about it, using sophisticated English)

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#46

Post by madaxe_again »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #33

> Some of these high county-level percentages stem from high populations of immigrants, whose first language is not English. The PIAAC only assesses English literacy, though its background questionnaire is given in English and Spanish. If you look at the map (and read the article), it's fairly obvious that they are NOT adjusting for non-English first language speakers. This is partly on purpose since it's those demog…

I’m not certain this is as big an effect as you might imagine.

I’m an immigrant in Portugal, I have been here five years - and I am far more literate in Portuguese than a good many of the people I encounter here, who are born and bred Portuguese. Sure, they speak better than me, of course, and it took me a while to realise that many of them could barely read or write - but the educational system in rural Portugal did not, and seemingly still does not, produce people with anything above bare-bones literacy.

This isn’t a judgment - purely an observation that literacy is something that translates across language barriers for the literate quite readily, and poor education results in poor literacy - not being foreign.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#47

Post by jstummbillig »

In a society that is increasingly less centered around reading, unused skills will atrophy and replaced with other things. It's not like the underlying genomics to execute the entire human spiel are getting better in step with societal change. Something's gotta give.

Furthermore, and despite my own inclinations, I have a hard time looking at literacy as an efficient delivery mechanism. In fact, I suspect the amount of time we spent reading for anything other than strictly pleasure will look fairly silly before long (at societal level and a humanity timescale).

In part that seems almost deliberate: Most of the "important" writing, to this day (and even though there has been some push back), prides itself in being fairly exclusive. Well, there you go.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#48

Post by bogdan-lab »

In the article they talk so much about funding schools which will improve immigrant literacy. But I think, that funding is not the problem. When you migrate to a new country you just naturally get into a bubble of your nationals. Its much easier to make a connection with other people from your country because of your common experience and culture. Then you just live in this bubble. You are in US, but all your free time you are still talking in your native language with your friends and family. Probably, read news and books in your native language too. So English language just needs to be on the bare minimum to give you a job. Hence low English literacy results.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#49

Post by kleene_op »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #32

That map of "low literacy" looks like a map of where large volumes of blue collar immigrants live. At a minimum, the presentation seems misleading. It is like noting that a disturbing number of people who own cowboy boots live in Texas. Probably true, but it doesn't imply anything important.

Yes but it's about 130 millions illiterate adults in a 300 millions population country. It is important.

Re: About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills (2022)

#50

Post by pseudo0 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #47

In a society that is increasingly less centered around reading, unused skills will atrophy and replaced with other things. It's not like the underlying genomics to execute the entire human spiel are getting better in step with societal change. Something's gotta give. Furthermore, and despite my own inclinations, I have a hard time looking at literacy as an efficient delivery mechanism. In fact, I suspect the amount o…

What do you view as more efficient than reading? In my experience, reading information is easily 3-5x faster than audio or video, even when using 1.25x or 1.5x playback.
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