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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)

#61

Post by kkfx »

Ehm, I'm from the EU, being a former globetrotter, living in the EU and... Situation here and in other places of the world it not much different. Yes most adults do know where Tokyo is and where is Central Asia or Perù, but... In substantial literacy terms most have issues reading non-super-dumb articles understanding them, elaborate a not so super-dumb concept in their mind, ...

Most adults do not know the bare minimum about the society they live in, oh sure, they tend to know the last gossip, but nothing about politics, bureaucracy, global changes and so on. They have a poor vocabulary, they can't write decent documents and so on.

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

#62

Post by Jensson »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #27
hunglee2 wrote: post #13

how does this actually happen, at the classroom level? Are the kids actually going to school or is it a case they show up and basically teacher can't control what's going in the room?

Classroom level is only one aspect of it though; literacy is learned through exposure and various levels. Another commenter mentioned social media, which is probably a factor too. Low effort high volume comments, indifference to proper spelling ("bcuz u can understand me"), more video / image based than text based, different reading habits. Education is part of it too, in theory we were supposed to read X books per y…

> even back then we downloaded and slightly edited the reports from the internets

When was this? It being easy to find completed homework on the internet wasn't a thing 25 years ago, so "even back then" seems to not be that long ago, considering this would have been when you were in middle school. Majority of adults today didn't go to school under those conditions, they had to write those reports or copy from a friend, which of course is easy to notice for teachers.

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

#63

Post by illiac786 »

Jensson wrote: post #59
fvdessen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business / Analysts / POs. Programmers as well, although it matters less.

If you can write code then you are literate for sure.

No, you can have very low skills in English and still be able to code, like many coders in Asia. Hence, it definitely can be the same for native English speakers.

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

#66

Post by spiffytech »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #60
fvdessen wrote: post #20

I am bewildered by the low literacy ability of a significant amount of the people I hired. People with advanced degrees; can't take notes, can't really read either. Not idiots, but illiterate. How did they end-up there ? Do we now need to test for literacy in interviews ?

Do you mean they are incapable of taking notes or that they just won't bother to? It is hard for me to imagine how someone would be incapable of taking notes. It is something you constantly had to do in school.

Probably not what the GP meant, but an interesting data point:

CGP Grey is a Youtuber who became well known for deeply-researched videos on subjects of nerdy interest.

Many years after going full-time doing this, he encountered Zettelkasten and realized that "taking notes" is supposed to including paraphrasing, write things in your own words, and making connections to other facts you've found. (Cortex podcast #105)

He thought notes were just the transcription version of using a highlighter in a book: exclusively verbatim quotes, just to save you from rereading the whole book. Synthesizing knowledge was a separate process. He'd carried this belief his whole life — educational Youtuber, high school physics teacher, two college degrees.

He attributes this in part to being raised on standardized testing, where memorizing the teacher's sound bites was how you succeeded.

Taking notes feels so basic that we just assume everyone knows how, and that we ourselves are doing it effectively. I mean, it's just taking notes, how hard is it? But really it's a growable skill where technique matters, and you can plateau very low if no one tells you you're doing it badly.

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

#68

Post by beej71 »

fvdessen wrote: post #20

I am bewildered by the low literacy ability of a significant amount of the people I hired. People with advanced degrees; can't take notes, can't really read either. Not idiots, but illiterate. How did they end-up there ? Do we now need to test for literacy in interviews ?

When I asked local tech CEOs in my town what skills they wanted entry-level programmers to have, they said they wanted them to be able to read and write.

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

#69

Post by beej71 »

viraptor wrote: post #57
bogdan-lab wrote: post #48

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 ti…

While it's going to apply to some specific communities: > When you migrate to a new country you just naturally get into a bubble of your nationals. Just keep in mind that's a really bad generalisation. There's different groups migrating for different reasons with/without a family. You don't "naturally" get into any bubble unless you seek one, or have an existing connection to.

There's also an alienation effect if the native society ostracizes the immigrants. They'll naturally seek a safety bubble.

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

#70

Post by beej71 »

yorwba wrote: post #42
saagarjha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

According to TFA, though, this isn't happening.

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