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54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

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Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#191

Post by dredmorbius »

HEmanZ wrote: post #53

Wikipedia happily reports that North Korea has a 100% adult proficient literacy rate. Cuba has a 99.9% rate. Brazil 98%, all leaps and bounds beyond any western country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_... The US is certainly behind much of the world in education, but these metrics are really hard gauge accurately. Diving in to where these numbers come from and how they compare to the rest…

I think that there is a strong argument to be made that it's not about the US having especially poor literacy attainment, but markedly accurate assessments of that attainment.

A somewhat similar study is the 2016 OECD report (based on a survey conducted in 2011--12), "Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills "

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills-matter_978926...

Jacob Nielsen addressed that in the context of computer UI/UX requirements for general-use application and website design, "The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think":

Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/

I've referenced both in my own essay, "The Tyranny of the Minimum Viable User", which acknowledges both that general-use systems must be generally-usable, and that this requirement reduces functionality for advanced users by numerous mechanisms.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/69wk8y/the_tyr...

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#192

Post by bigfudge »

vmception wrote: post #77
csdvrx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving asides the offense/racist grandparent comments, the worship of money is what has made America prosperous, and what still allows us to get the best and the brightest. Ask "them enlightened" Europeans (or Australians or...) how much they make, and rejoice we get to live a prosperous life here in America! And no, before someone says "but what about universal healthcare?", health insurance doesn't count, because…

Rich Europeans are also illiquid, first born manchilds that inherited a finance role at the family office and have no idea what to do. I find it really interesting how the US optimized specifically for liquidity. Like, foreigners came to the US to use it for that and eventually won. Crazy to think how much is illiquid around the world, and how much more can become liquid.

This comment is both patronising, rude and incorrect at the same time. Social mobility is broadly the same in the US and Europe. What is different is that people in the US overestimate their social mobility:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#193

Post by vmception »

bigfudge wrote: post #192
vmception wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich Europeans are also illiquid, first born manchilds that inherited a finance role at the family office and have no idea what to do. I find it really interesting how the US optimized specifically for liquidity. Like, foreigners came to the US to use it for that and eventually won. Crazy to think how much is illiquid around the world, and how much more can become liquid.

This comment is both patronising, rude and incorrect at the same time. Social mobility is broadly the same in the US and Europe. What is different is that people in the US overestimate their social mobility: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...

I’m talking about the generational 1% not broad population movements into something moderately stable, best not to conflate those two

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#194

Post by dredmorbius »

adolph wrote: post #173
DarylZero wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None if your "conscience" is installed by capitalist propaganda.

Well, if you can’t read you probably have partial immunity to capitalist propaganda.

Much propaganda avoids reliance on written distribution.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#195

Post by dredmorbius »

savant_penguin wrote: post #7

It's interesting that one of the richest countries on earth has such low education standards

The US Department of Education makes a far more detailed measure of literacy than most countries do.

The base level of literacy in the US is similar to that of other advanced nations. Particularly accounting for its large immigrant population who don't speak English as their first or primary language.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#196

Post by vmception »

dang wrote: post #164

This submission has an egregiously editorialized title, which is against the site guidelines for good reason: " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " As a result, we got a tedious, dumbed-down, inflammatory and supercilious discussion. Just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

clickbait works, actual title doesn’t, solution?

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#197

Post by dredmorbius »

garren wrote: post #176

The citation for that statistic is from a Forbes article that itself doesn’t actually cite a source beyond stating “According to the U.S. Department of Education.”

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NCES 2019-179, JULY 2019

Adult Literacy in the United States

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29734146

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#198

Post by Dylan16807 »

Muromec wrote: post #182
Dylan16807 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean "just maybe" literally, then sure, it's worth thinking about. Figuring out the sounds is a small part and we definitely shouldn't assume it's the bottleneck.

Well, that's literally how children read -- they figure out the sounds from letters and pronounce syllable by syllable, then repeat the whole word (if then don't forget something in the middle of it). Naturally, if there is more than one way to read everything, it kinda doesn't work.

But that's well before sixth grade level. It's possible it is a huge factor, but it's also possible it's less than 5% of the problem.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#199

Post by lazyasciiart »

romwell wrote: post #190
avianlyric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 g…

The teaching failure lies making what you struggle with a required component of education, and measuring you on it in the same way as others, while providing you with no alternative route to success that doesn't require you jumping through hoops. To give an analogy: someone who can't walk has a disability, but it would be a failure of the instructor to make 5K running the only way to get a passing grade in physical e…

> To give an analogy: someone who can't walk has a disability, but it would be a failure of the instructor to make 5K running the only way to get a passing grade in physical education

And that individualized education would have no effect whatsoever on their place in the eventual statistic that x% of Americans cannot run 5k.

Re: 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level

#200

Post by romwell »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #199
romwell wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teaching failure lies making what you struggle with a required component of education, and measuring you on it in the same way as others, while providing you with no alternative route to success that doesn't require you jumping through hoops. To give an analogy: someone who can't walk has a disability, but it would be a failure of the instructor to make 5K running the only way to get a passing grade in physical e…

> To give an analogy: someone who can't walk has a disability, but it would be a failure of the instructor to make 5K running the only way to get a passing grade in physical education And that individualized education would have no effect whatsoever on their place in the eventual statistic that x% of Americans cannot run 5k.

And why would that statistic be important?

Also, imagine running 5K being a requirement for admission to college.

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