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54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
151–160 of 222 posts
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony is that HN posters are vehemently against social media, particularly FB. The reasons I’ve read are all about the general negativity, pessimism, false information, etc. While HN submissions are generally held to a higher standard, the general comments/discussions are equally toxic. Apparently FB is such a cancer and everyone else is such a problem - but we’re actually part of the problem.
HN is just heavily moderated. It’s the same dumpster fire as the rest of the internet, just with dang’s yay/nay filter applied.
It also is important to point out how much self censorship exist on HN. It can be interpreted as tact, group think, civility, and so on.
Personal restraint has vanished more and more in the last few years. Many here would argue it is a result of social media platforms.
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#153Based on the level of reading and writing comprehension in the average HN thread, I would say we should practice more humility than I'm seeing in this thread so far.
It is most likely not your point but keep in mind that not everyone on HN is a native English speaker, and not everyone lives in an English speaking country.
As a French guy, if you tell me that my English is 5th-grade level, I take it as a compliment.
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#154Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#155It's hard to tell from Wikipedia what the 6th-grade reading level is and how its measured. Google points me to Flesch Reading Ease. Not a very precise formula... If I remember correctly, the NYTimes is written for the 8th-grade level. Similarly, many hospitals/healthcare facilities don't allow writing above the 8th-grade level. So, expressive, detailed, and stylized writing are all easily possible at the 8th-grade le…
> many hospitals/healthcare facilities don't allow writing above the 8th-grade level. So, expressive, detailed, and stylized writing are all easily possible at the 8th-grade level.
Not so. Rather, demonstrably not possible, at least not by some writers currently assigned to the task of rewriting instructions for prescription medicines. Subtleties of dose timing, interactions with other medicines and such I have seen mangled into ambiguity, or dropped altogether. So I was able to medicate myself with a reasonable degree of confidence.
Fortunately, in my case, the manufacturer's original advice as written for physicians was preserved, bottommost of three, behind maddening "plain English" rewrites from both insurer and local medical group.
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#156I couldn't write a coherent sentence until I was 24 years old. A couple years after high school I discovered reading starting with "Cannery Row" however it still took significant effort to learn to write despite thousands of hours of reading. Once I understood the basic mechanics of grammar, fitting words into meaningful structures became second nature. I still can't spell the word coherent without assistance from a…
> People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities. People are probably hostile because you're going against scientific consensus and saying a range of disabilities that affects millions of people doesn't exist.
I feel like GP-post is a typical "feel good about yourself post".
"Look, even though someone was at fault through all of my early years i still managed to learn these rudimentary tasks on my own as an adult, not everyone is as good as i am".
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#157I couldn't write a coherent sentence until I was 24 years old. A couple years after high school I discovered reading starting with "Cannery Row" however it still took significant effort to learn to write despite thousands of hours of reading. Once I understood the basic mechanics of grammar, fitting words into meaningful structures became second nature. I still can't spell the word coherent without assistance from a…
> People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities There is such a thing as dyslexia, and that cannot be fixed by teaching better. You can still form sentences, apply grammar and tell stories without writing, but the reading+writing part is a major problem for some people. Your story of beating the challenges of your bad early education can't and wo…
Except that most diagnoses of dyslexia in the US are highly questionable. Basically anyone with any difficulty is assigned it. I'm not questioning the 1% of people that actually have trouble with decoding tex,t but if our education system is so bad that only 54% of adults in the United States get to the 6th grade level than it's not surprising that a significant portion of those poeple will get diagnosed with some disability.
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. Discourse should be no holds barred. If your points can't stand unfiltered scrutiny maybe they're not as solid as you think. I consider HN somewhere between 4chan and reddit. People here are actually smart (unlike reddit, which appears to attract angsty teenagers more than anything) and willing to engage in discussions outside of the status quo. It's…
Richard Hanania had some interesting comments about this ( https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/reflections-on-2021 ) > When I’m on Twitter, how rude should I be? > I tend to admire thinkers who are civil and think less of those who are rude. Usually, I try to emulate those I admire and not those I don’t, but I actually think there’s an intellectual case to be made for rudeness and snark as long as it’s used in defe…
>. So I’m sort of a fan of incivility and rudeness, but also thinking carefully about how to make snark constructive (I’m aware this could all be motivated reasoning and I just enjoy insulting people).
It's easy for him to be rude. He has a big twitter and substack platform/following, but being a dick will promptly get you banned from many communities if you have not paid your dues.
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People are hostile when I say there isn't such a thing as a learning disability but rather only teaching disabilities. People are probably hostile because you're going against scientific consensus and saying a range of disabilities that affects millions of people doesn't exist.
The parent is right though. All a "learning disability" is is a requirement for a different approach from the instructor than the one-size-fits-all nonsense that we push down poor kids' throats as "education". The lack of ability to benefit from this farce in millions of students isn't surprising; and it can be absolutely address with better instruction and individual approach. I say this as a former instructor, math…
> All a "learning disability" is is a requirement for a different approach from the instructor than the one-size-fits-all nonsense that we push down poor kids' throats as "education".
Tell that to my Dyslexia, I had many mentors growing up, and was taught by many people using many different approaches. I still can’t spell for shit, and my phonic processing is still garbage.
No about of different teaching methods is going to change the fundamentals fact that my brain struggles to turn sounds into words, resulting in me hearing noise rather than speech, and turning ideas into written words.
I’m perfectly articulate, indeed I’ve been accused of being “too articulate”, whatever that means, by my written prose is poor because I struggle translating phonic sounds into letters and words. Even simple words like “because”, “through”, “thought” etc which I’ve written and read correctly millions of times, I still struggle with, and need help from a spellchecker to get correct.
If that isn’t a learning disability, then I have no idea what it is. But it sure as shit isn’t a teaching failure.
Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level
#160It's hard to tell from Wikipedia what the 6th-grade reading level is and how its measured. Google points me to Flesch Reading Ease. Not a very precise formula... If I remember correctly, the NYTimes is written for the 8th-grade level. Similarly, many hospitals/healthcare facilities don't allow writing above the 8th-grade level. So, expressive, detailed, and stylized writing are all easily possible at the 8th-grade le…
>What's the gap between an 8th grade reader and a 6th grade reader? They can both interpret the instructions on the side of an AT4 but the 8th grader will be able to tell you that it did not have any alliterations, foreshadowing, or personification. People always forget that at some point in middle school "getting better at reading" stops being about interpreting the literal meanings of sentences and paragraphs and s…
True, and the result is that a lot of people (even those with high grades) come out of high school not being able to read classics or just primary sources from before the 20th century.