42 million Americans are illiterate

One reason for the decline of newspaper circulation is that 42 million Americans are illiterate and roughly 50 million more are semi-literate, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Christopher Hedges says. What’s more, he adds, 80 percent of U.S. households last year did not buy a book.

“The rates of illiteracy or semi-literacy---meaning people reading at a fourth or fifth grade level---now comprise one-third of the United States,” says Hedges, “and even those who are technically literate opt into a system where they get most of their information through images---images which are of course skillfully manipulated.”

http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/12166/2009-10-09.html">http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/12166/2009-10-09.html

these 42 million kids must be onto something that will make them multi-billionaires...

cultural or what, would be interesting to see the thoughts on this. I deal daily with people who if they can read or write it is only very badly, hell sometimes i need to get a translator to tell me what i am looking at.....

I think that makes a huge difference, although I have nothing scientific to back it up.

I grew up with my nose in a book. In the summer, Mom would tell me to go outside, so I would grab my book & sit under a shade tree. She never read to my sister & my sister doesn't read. She can read, thanks to a decent education, but she doesn't enjoy it at all. She once told me that she can't read the words & conjure them into images. Could it be because she wasn't read to at an early age? Are imaging skills similar to learning a foreign language - it's easier to do at an early age than later?

I can't imagine my life without reading. Unless there is something special on TV, (rarely!) I would much prefer to read.

In second grade I moved to a different school district & I was so far ahead of my peers in reading & pronunciation that my teacher called my mother & asked about my history. My mom told her I had phonics in first grade & she was certain that was why I was able to sound out words better. The teacher said that she had tried several times to get phonics in the curriculum but the board wasn't open to it - they didn't see the value. Teach them their ABCs & that's enough, was their motto.

in first or second grade, we had a group of the more advanced readers who were taught phonics by the ITA method (i have no idea what that stood for). and as far as i remember, for myself and all the kids in that group through elementary school we were good spellers and good readers.

we also had a teacher in fifth grade who would read to us every day. for some reason they had afternoon recess only 35 or 45 minutes before time to go home ... so to get us settled she would read to us and we could either listen or do whatever we wanted at our desks as long as we were quiet about it. she remains the favorite teacher i had during elementary school.

but I liked having some rules to sound out words. At my new school, I sat in stunned silence when one child tried to pronounce telephone & came up with tel-e-pa-hon-e. Since they hadn't had phonics, they didn't know that 'ph' has an 'f' sound & that an 'e' at the end of a word is usually silent. That's the first time I really appreciated what I'd learned in phonics.

In high school I had a biology teacher who felt it was essential to have a good vocabulary. Occasionally, he would put a completely easy question on the exam, but he would use bigger words to phrase it, so even though the question was very simple, you had to know what the words meant. I remember one T/F question: Water is detrimental to life on earth. I was the only student who got the answer right. Looking back, I'm not sure testing vocabulary in biology class is a good idea, but since I was better at English than science, I was happy to have an edge.

How interesting! My fifth grade teacher also read to us. She would read a chapter a day, right after lunch recess. You're right - it was very settling for the entire class & even the non-readers enjoyed it. She was one of my favorite teachers, too.

But, based upon my personal experience, the fact that your parents read to you when you were young is no guarantee you'll be a person with your nose buried in a book. My mother had four kids. Each of us read to about the same amount when we were young. Two of us are voracious readers, two not so much. The two that don't read so much are not illiterate, they just have other things they'd rather be doing.

For myself, I had trouble learning to read. My first grade teacher called my mother in for a conference and made my mother aware of my problems and that it would, most likely, lead to my being held back. It was my mother who worked with me until I was brought up to grade level in my reading skills. As far as I'm concerned, my teacher did exactly what she should have done. She identified my problem, informed my mother, and when my mother asked, gave her advice on how to help me. Had my mother not helped me at that stage, there is a good probability I'd have become one of the illiterate with a fourth or fifth grade reading level - regardless of how much I was read to as a child. As it is, I'm constantly reading.

So, while from my personal experience, being read to as a child wasn't crucial to being 'a reader', parental involvement at a critical point was.

However, having stated all that, I have read that one of the first barriers to illiteracy is being read to when you're young. Neither my brothers nor I are illiterate, but two of us turned out to be 'readers' and two of us would only read what was REALLY interesting to them or what they were forced to in school.

i can't either, and i'm ashamed to admit my time spent reading has been significantly reduced since i've had the internet.

but like you, my mother read to me, and then i to her as soon as i could. i learned to print my name at 3 years old so i could "sign" my own library card. i remember going to the library every week to get six new books to read. my parent did have a lot of money for toys, games, entertainment, but they always made sure we had books in the house.

my father was a book printer, and he could bring home the damaged and old sales copies of books ... and i still closely associate the smell of a newly printed book with my father coming home from work--and he'd often save his cookies from his lunch box and give me the leftovers! i would hug him when he came in, and he would smell like printing ink but in a good way.

Like you, I don't read as much since the internet, although I do read a lot on the internet. Does that count? ;) Interestingly, I use to read sci fi, almost exclusively. Then came boosh & I started reading political books, almost exclusively. I have a small pile of sci fi books waiting for my return.

I don't recall this perfectly, but in one of the Star Trek movies, Capt. Kirk receives an old edition book as a gift. One of the other characters makes a comment about how antiquated books are. He replies that there is something about a book -- smelling the pages, flipping through the pages, the print on the pages. I can relate to that. Someday I may buy a Kindle, but I know it will never be the same as a book.

I could not live wit without reading.

My parents told how I would get very angry and frustrated because I couldn't read the billboards and road signs as we drove past.
According to my dad I came home from my first day at school absolutely furious because they didn't teach me to read in one day.
Reading came very easy to me and throughout school I always read well ahead of my grade level. Looking back though, I sure could have traded some that reading skill for some mathematical ability!

By watching television commercials. It was the mid-1950's and the commercials were more literate than now.

I cannot envision a life without reading in it.

Just curious.. when I see stats like that.. I have to wonder, does it include kids that can't possibly read yet? Now, if it's 42 million Americans over the age of 7 or 8 who can't read, that would be a huge problem.

Thanks for any clarification.

Link to a previous post of mine in which I linked the .pdf of the study and its parameters.

and 43% as 'basic or lower' in literacy. Whereas Hedges says about 1/3.

Interesting to note that 46% of those who are below basic are age 50 or older. Not sure what kind of life they are having, but they seem to have made it quite a ways through their life without being able to read well.

but that is not the source for his "roughly another 50 million"

Plus, since they only tested adults, it should be 14% of perhaps 240 million (over age 14) or 33.6 million.

that there are 3 categories of literacy being tested; document, prose, and quantitative, and four levels of literacy; below basic, basic, intermediate, and proficient.

I'll let the report speak for itself.

As far as I'm concerned, 86% of the US population being functionally illiterate is upsetting to me whether it is 86% of the over 14-year-old population or the population as a whole.

Re-read what you quoted.

In other words, allowances were made during the testing process to filter out those cases of "illiteracy" that might be specific to language barriers rather than actual literacy issues.

"questions asked in either Spanish or English"

Please read what I quoted for comprehension rather than catch phrases. Yes; materials written in English; "asked in either Spanish or English."

Then were asked questions based upon what they read in English or Spanish. If someone needed to have the questions asked in Spanish I can assure you they probably did not understand what they read in English. If you were correct and they had the text read to them in Spanish it would no longer be a literacy test but a listening comprehension test.

See page 4 of the study. The people for whom language was a barrier, were not included in the testing.

and compounding that error with an assumption of comprehension!

What were you thinking?
:wow::rofl:

"The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) measures the English literacy of
America's adults ..."

The ENGLISH literacy. Thus it is perhaps not surprising that 39% of the people 'below basic' were hispanic.

The test was flawed, they had people read something in English and if they did not understand it they declared them illiterate without even having them read the same text in another language. People who can only communicate through Spanish were included in the testing.

Apparently, you and I are reading two different reports.

And were they asked questions based upon the text in English or Spanish, Yes or No?

If you answered yes for both of my questions then we read the same study. If you answered no at any point go back and reread the study. It was a study on "English" Literacy in the US which only applied to people who could communicate through English or Spanish.

Perhaps you think the phrase "based upon" means in English rather than translated from English.

Your second question requires an answer other than yes or no. Were the tests "based upon English or Spanish"? The answer is English not yes or no. See previous sentence about based upon.

Now, my apologies. But with logic such as yours, I can no longer argue; it hurts my head too much. We seem to have difference interpretations of the text.

I see a report based on a study in which they made allowances for language barriers. You appear to see a study in which the literacy rate for Americans is skewed downward because of Hispanics and/or other non-English-as-a-first-language speakers.

The text was in English only the questions to see if they understood the text were in English or Spanish. It was an English Literacy test after all not a Literacy Test, failure to pass the test does not mean they are illiterate only they failed to comprehend English in written text.

Fighting a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent and trying not to hurt them is hard.

From the PDF:

"The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) measures the English literacy of
America's adults (people age 16 and older living in households or prisons).The average quantitative
literacy scores of adults increased 8 points between 1992 and 2003, though average prose and
document literacy did not differ significantly from 1992 (figure 1)."

If the goal is to see how many can read English, then why on earth would you test for other languages?

about whatever they may be able to (or be inclined to) read, it would be hard to disagree.

... that we don't simply have a culture of anti-intellectualism, we have a culture of pro-idiocy.

someone is dropping the ball big time...

:(

that includes the parents, the schools, the social milieu.

I read, I devour books. People make fun of people like me... and my husband... pointy headed intellectuals

:-(

So there is a built in bias in commercialism to create stupid, ignorant customers.

Works for the politicians too, the last thing any politician wants is a truly interested and engaged citizenry, they're too hard to control.

i see it across the political spectrum and across the ethnic groups...

:rofl:

For certain values of "smart"?

and frinstance the dude who defended me the last time i needed a lawyer was a fan of hannity and im glad he wasnt a dumb guy..... i dont think either side has the lock on dumb and smart...

Everyone is better at some things than others, but penetrating the cloud of corporate and government bullshit we live under seems to be a fairly rare trait.

you think an educated people could put up with the shit Americans do?
there would Really be pitchforks and torches out in the streets.

Though its a pretty grim statistic and much worse than I had thought...downloaded pdf to look over - thanks.

nt

What a moronic comment.

And if the balance is a little too unbalanced, there's always technology to make illiterate employees not quite the burden they might be otherwise.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/

America the Illiterate
Posted on Nov 10, 2008

By Chris Hedges

<edit>

The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.

The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.

more...

A thoroughly unsourced rant, full of assumptions and hyperbole. What a crock. Am I supposed to take this seriously?

nt

especially anyone responsible for hiring, firing and supervising employees, is already painfully aware of the problem. It's very frustrating to be asked to write instructions or procedures and then find that no one actually reads them - or can comprehend what is written, even if they try :(

i hate to say it but the ones from the guys who are here ilegally fromo central america are written better than the majority of the ones i get from US citizens..... Especially since some of the guys and girls who write these disasters have just graduated high school...

While I've seen lots and lots of lousy writing, I've only encountered two students who were genuinely illiterate - and one had the excuse of being an ESL student who was at least trying - but that shouldn't fucking happen at all at that level.

I took a bunch of courses online, many involving students in online discussion boards; in a regular class of 30 or so, there was commonly only 3 or 4 who could spell and form sentences correctly. I felt bad for a lot of them, but along with the inability to write comes the inability to think - it was clear at times that comprehension of complex ideas just wasn't there very often either.

The differences students have when writing on a forum versus writing a formal paper can be pretty surprising, and if they slip into the "it's just a forum" mindset for the discussion boards I can see that happening, annoying though it may be.

On the other hand, I did grade a few papers written largely in standard IM abbreviations ("u" for "you," etc, with maddening, utter consistency throughout). I had to write "wtf? no!" or something to that effect on them. The amusing thing is that in most cases they were outlined and argued competently enough.

Coming across an anglophone student in a Canadian university who couldn't grasp subject-verb-object word order in writing despite being fluent in English was a bit shocking, though.

How could we elect some one who couldn't even talk

... I doubt that it explains newspaper circulation. Far fewer adults were literate in the late 19th and early 20th century, yet newspapers were thriving then.

One is that since there was no TV and no radio, one had to read a newspaper in order to be somewhat conversant with the events of the time.

The second is that there was probably a more defined idea of what it meant to be middle or upper class, and part of that definition involved reading a newspaper and being informed.

(It's also possible that since there were no glossy, colored People magazines, people read the paper for gossip, fashion, entertainment, and other less serious pursuits.)

Nowadays one can read the paper online, watch the "news," listen to NPR, or read the paper in the cafeteria at work and be somewhat informed.

Also, you can be rich now and be an ignorant fool. I suspect there is no longer the peer pressure among the upper classes to be informed. :shrug:

n/t

They believe it 100%

they won't. A few will, but the rest just blow off the assignment saying it's "too hard." It isn't, they just don't want to do it. They want to do plug and chug math problems that require no thinking. So I give them story problems where they have to 1) read the fucking problem, damn it! and 2) figure out what they're being asked to do (solve for) and what information is nice to know but irrelevant to solving the problem. They won't learn to do these unless they try -- it's about learning critical thinking and analytical reasoning.

These are HS juniors, 19 months away from being unleashed on the world as adults. It's frightening. I do what I can but they have 10 years of conditioned laziness and avoidance under their belts. The few I can reach I do, they get it, they will be the next generation of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. The rest will be flipping burgers. It's damn frustrating.

i can almost guarentee they will pass through my hands at one time or another.... its a shame that parents and the teachers are not getting them or making them learn to goddamn read and write, its not that hard.... (if i can do it)

Good luck to you. I shudder to think what happens to these kids when the real world hits.

Advanced seniors at the local high school often refuse to read assignments and are more than happy to take a hit on reading quizzes. They go on the often justified assumption they will be bailed out in the end just to keep the system operating. And when it comes to multiplying 2400 by .82 without a calculator--well, don't hold your breath.

I don't do extra credit. I love how they ask for extra credit two days before the end of the quarter or semester to save their grades. Nope, don't do it. Shock and amazement. At the beginning of the semester I tell kids the story of the tortoise and the hare and tell them I have a great amount of respect for the tortoise who slowly and methodically does the work and gives his best effort throughout the semester. I have little respect for the hare who rushes in when he realizes he's far behind and needs a miracle to catch up. I tell them the answer will be "No" and when I follow through on that, they shit bricks. Tough. Welcome to the world. Maybe that will be the best lesson they learn in my class.

NCLB or "teach the test" systems not only punish the burn-outs and the unqualified, they punish teachers who would rather do their jobs and grade to the merits of the student's willingness to do the curricula and actually learn.
The kidlet is pretty much functionally illiterate. Unless what she is reading is structured in declarative statements, she can't comprehend or remember what she is reading; prose is just "letters on a page" to her. She hates reading books without pictures, and uses Manga and "graphic novels" to get her literature credits. Yet, according to the State standardized tests, she passes "reading comprehension" tests with flying colors - she's apparently reading at a junior college level. In actuality, she's comprehending at a second grade level with the caveat of having a junior college level vocabulary due to the words her father and I use with her on a daily basis. Her mother, in charge of her until she was about 13, didn't care about either reading or school; she appeared to be content that the kidlet was "peer advanced" (as long as she could pass the end of the year test) through elementary and the beginning of middle school, and never could come up with any sort of answer about how the kidlet was doing in school whenever Laz asked the mother. And of course, kidlet never admitted having problems at school to him. Even when she moved in with us, she would constantly lie about her schoolwork and difficulties she had (because with classes of a minimum of 45 students per teacher, she wasn't being paid attention to until it was too late to correct it); and they don't "peer advance" here where we are living now like they did where her mother lives...

I looked at these yearly standardized progress tests last year when she was failing charter school. If you are good at pattern recognition and can figure out what the key words are, you can pass every single multiple choice "essay" question they grade comprehension at. My ASVAB test back in 1977 was more difficult that what "these kids nowdays" are being tested at in terms of English or other Social Sciences.

Everything is "rote-based". The 10th grade math may be harder than it was when I was going through school, but English, Geography, History - feh, you don't have to think, you just have to follow the fairly easy clues to the right answer. Puzzle-based video games (Like BrainScan or Professor Layton) are more difficult than the English or History test.

The kidlet is finally going to a school (Private/Public IEP for gifted with learning disabilities) where the classes are small enough she's not getting lost in the crowd, and the teachers are able to spend time and tailor her lessons so she can catch up and fill in her gaps (if she tries). She's actually doing better; her essays and regular word usage are starting to show enough maturity that indicates she's starting to comprehend - to picture - what she is reading. If we can keep her motivated and get her up to a reading comprehension and research ability of at least a 7th grade level by the time she finally graduates in two years, we can count that as progress towards learning how to "learn".

Haele

???

Sort of like mad-libs.

Here's an example:
Stacy was interested in learning how to fix cars, so when the family van needed some small repair, she asked her father if she could help. He agreed, but discovered that his metric ratchet had gone missing and was no longer in the tool box.
Stacy offered to go to the store to find a replacement for the tool. She first went to a hardware store where she _____________ in the _______ section to find where the ratchets would be. She was __________ that the ratchet type she was looking for could be found at that store and she would have to ___________.

the first __________ answers are -
A. asked a customer
B. asked a cashier
C. looked
D. walked

the second ___________ answers are -
A. Hardware
B. Tool
C. Fasteners

The third _______ answers are -
A. Informed
B. Explained
C. Denied

And so on.
They don't have to write the essays, outlines, stories, etc; they just have to "fill in the blanks". The kidlet informed me that her official standardized tests (CASHEE, etc) were always multiple choice or true/false.
When she would be asked to write an essay on her own vice filling in the blanks or selecting a multiple choice answer on what a provided essay was about, it would always be "for homework" and never as part of a course test given by the teacher, so she'd never really pay attention to how to read or write effectively.
And she'd always figure out a way to blow off homework. "I did it in class" was always the answer whether she did homework there or not, and trying to check with the teacher about the status of her homework was nigh impossible because of the sheer amount of students with "issues" the teacher was trying to keep track of.
Standardized "essay" tests for reading comprehension might as well have been a boring Mad-Lib exercise to her. And as she is pretty good with Mad-Libs, she always did well.
Now that her english teachers are able to sit down with her as part of their small (6 - 8 kids max) classes and will use graded essay writing exercises and book reports for the vocabulary and reading comprehension tests to pass the class, she's actually having to learn and remember - just like I did in my jr. High School English and Literature classes in the "good old days".

Haele

I don't have children. It wasn't until I came to DU that I discovered that our educational system changed from learning based to test based - recite the answer whether you understand or not. I'm seriously concerned for our youth. They are facing challenges that our species has not seen before & many are not prepared to deal with those challenges. Parents like you give me hope. :thumbsup:

This cartoon seems appropriate for this thread:

It does sound like she's making progress. We celebrate that and work for even more.

I used to give students vocab sheets and fill-in-the-blank type stuff to do as they read passages. I found that they just read to find the definition and not for understanding so I stopped that and have them take notes. Then they get a series of questions they use to summarize the notes and conclude/explain what the author was trying to say. Harder for me, excruciating for them. But they learn and even though they hate it, they do get something out of it.

BTW, I write all the stuff myself because the textbook is crap. I try to use passages from important people in the field when I can (and edit a bit here and there) to get them exposed to different types of writing. Even though I teach science, I am a firm believer in reading. They will need to know how to read technical information, even if to interpret an Ikea assembly diagram. I'm a loner on this but adamant about it also.

No wonder it seems like I'm drowning in mouth breathing mentally defective people.


I don't "like" to read, but I can't imagine a world without it.

A few even here.

Rote memorization of words and grammar is too boring anyways.

:sarcasm:

Very sad, especially considering the outright shit that makes up the majority of books purchased.
rec.
mark

I don't buy many but I do go to the library often. I wonder how "business" has been for them?

as cities/states are cutting back services due to the "recession". Philly closed libraries, fire stations, cut back on police.
FWIW, PA state legislature FINALLY PASSED A BUDGET FRIDAY - 101 days after it was due. Their political games caused many service organizations to all but shut down, leaving thousands of poor with no resources.
Pols, of course, got paid, even though they cut pay for other state workers.

Sorry - I really hate politicians of all stripes.

mark:rant:

I've never learned anything about grammar before, and it's really rough reading sentences that have multiple unfamiliar terms.

I shake my fist at every English teacher I ever had, 'cause they were all too lazy to teach me this stuff back in school. x(

How much effort did you put in to learning grammar? It's boring and most kids hate it. Just because you didn't learn it, doesn't mean a teacher didn't try to teach it to you at some point. It's hard to fathom that all your English teachers failed to teach you grammar. Education takes more than one person, the teacher. It takes students who are willing to learn and parents who are supporting that effort along with many other support personnel.

I am so tired of teacher-bashing. Some may be warranted but blanket statements about "all" teachers are highly suspect.

:thumbsup:

because it's one of those situations where you're asking kids to attend to something they think they already know. The teacher that managed to do this for me was a seventh grade English teacher. She was a stern red-headed Scotswoman and I don't remember her smiling very much. But she was an excellent teacher and I would never have crossed her on purpose. lol

I only know what a noun and a verb are from Latin class.

None of my elementary school teachers bothered with grammar, none of my middle school teachers bothered with grammar, and none of my high school teachers bothered with grammar.

This is a simple fact, it's not intended to bash. :shrug:

I was taught "transformational grammar" in 6-8th grades as part of an experimental program. I don't know why the group of students was chosen and had no idea what was being done to me until the end of the 9th grade. One day our teacher said, "I feel guilty because you haven't been taught traditional gammar so we're going to spend X number of days on it just so you get a sense of what you've missed." Bless her for trying. We had learned the basic parts of speech but the structure stuff was way different. It took me many years and a lot of determination to overcome this.

BTW, it was a study by Noam Chomsky I was participating in. I've always been pissed at him about that.

You might be one of the few people on here who can end a story with "I've always been pissed at Chomsky for that." :P

I was fortunate enough to be to to read via phonics. As a result I can read just about anything printed in the English Language. My brother, one year behind me in school was taught to read via the "sight method". This was the "Modern" method of teaching reading in the mid 50s. His teacher,fresh from her University training embrace the "new" methodology. My brother, 55 years later still has a difficult time reading the local newspaper. He does not like to read, he finds it difficult. If he sees a new word that he has never seen before, he does not have the tools to pronounce the word.

Having a 11 or 12 year old break down the sentance structure of an passage in, say, Twain (his essay on J.F.Cooper comes to mind...) or any other short reading that a child would accept as interesting on a regular basis over a couple semesters will do wonders to help them learn to write properly.

When I was seven, I learned to write and draw by copying successful writers and artists that interested me. Attempting to take characters I was interested in and writing my own stories so it would sound as if the writer wrote it just for me helped my vocabulary, spelling, grammer, and ability to research so that at school, I was always considered "above my level". Of course, if I did homework as I was supposed to instead of writing and drawing to please myself, I would have done much better in school and wouldn't have had to join the Navy to support myself after High School... :)

It helped that my parents encouraged me to write and draw, as we couldn't afford any of the distractions that most children had in my youth.

Gads, this reminds me. This is the last day of my 49th year...tomorrow I can officially stop being "the kool mom", sit on a rocker on the stoop, shake my cane and start yelling "You kids git offa my lawn!"

Haele

the designer class = the liars now telling you 1/3 of us are "semi-literate".

especially since he said "Americans" and not "American adults"

According to projections for 2010, there are 21.1 million Americans under the age of 5. You can probably include almost all of them in the "illiterate" group. There are another 20.89 million Americans between the ages of 5 and 9. I bet lots of them can only read at a 4th grade level or less!! Shocking, isn't it?

Right there, is about 40 million Americans who are semi-literate.

were so weak as to be unrepresentative were accommodated or excluded.

No, we are as stupid as we appear to be.

:eyes:

Rover certainly did. After '00, he tailored their campaigns to cater to ill-educated, ill-informed church goers.

I had a well educated hippy type tell me that Obama wasn't a citizen. I couldn't believe I had to explain to him about the two birth announcement. We're a nation of ignoramuses.

Sorry, but with as many people as I meet every year touring I have yet to meet any of these people who can't read. If it's one in 3 Americans then I should have met a bunch of them. And the book thing? So if I ask 10 Americans if they have ever bought a book 8 of them will say no? Judging from the crowds at my favorite bookstores I call BULLSHIT.


And the reason for the decline of Newspaper readership has nothing to do with illiteracy it has to do with the internet and the loss of true journalism.

Looks like there's an innumeracy problem in America too.

of my house. 1 BArns and Nobel. 1 Borders. 1 Bookstar and 4 used bookstores. Now are you telling me that all those stores manage to stay in business when only 2 out of 10 people can fucking read?

Looks like there is a problem with people saying Americans are smarter than that.

CD and DVD sales, maybe?

:rofl: :rofl:

How could they possibly stay in business with sixty million customers, many of whom are repeat visitors? Ohnoes!

that at least half of the females are barely literate, a couple are very well versed and the rest are able to get by, and thats out of 50 females, not a great cross section of the population but the products of what are meant to be good school districts. Funnily enough its the older females who can read and write the best....

Illiteracy refers to things like choosing not to read, or being inable to interpret what was read.

This post being a humorous example.

who feel the need to vent their superiority upon others.

You believe what you want to believe, as many people as I meet in a year I know this is bullshit.

You don't. Fine we disagree. But there was no need for that pathetic attempt to insult me.

You misunderstand what is ment by illiteracy, you failed to realize the difference between buying a book in the last year, and buying a book ever, you dismissed a scientific study based on anecdotal evidence which is a logical fallacy and evidence of scientific illiteracy, and you fail to understand that businesses can do perfectly fine by selling products to 20% of the population or less, which isn't illiteracy it's just silly.

wages & privatize education.

also, how would you know if the people you meet are illiterate?

and if you can't then someone could die. You ever seen a concert stage? Do you have any idea what it takes to know how to fly all that shit and keep it from falling on someone's head? For a medium sized Arena show it's about 100 people all working together and all doing everything right.

I meet 30-40 new stage hands at every show. 70 shows a year. If what the OP posted is true then I should have met a bunch of fucking idiots. I haven't. But please go ahead and believe that 1/3rd of Americans are stupid and that only 2 in 10 actually read books. Whatever floats your boat.

you think they represent the best educated Americans? LOL... , but they can still read and do basic math. Which is why I think this is bullshit. I think the numbers are way over inflated. Now maybe half of Americans don't read and maybe 15% are illiterate those numbers sound a bit closer to me. Frankly if the link worked I would investigate further but the link doesn't work for me.

to writing and reading, you tend to get very well educated and the dumber than the bike they ride types....

then there must be a screening process to week out the idiots. Presumably stage hands are not just picked up on the streets by people walking around going "dude, you wanna job as a stage hand?"

Plus, you have only verified the reading ability of 2800 people in a nation of over 300 million.

It also said that only 2 in ten bought books in any given year. When I sold books it seemed like half of them were kids books. People bought books for their grandkids much more than they bought books for themselves. Maybe with limited income, lots of people are using the libraries.

Fine we disagree.

it would be if those people were hired at random

it's a little bit like you going to MENSA meetings or local chess clubs and then saying "everybody I know is wicked smart".

based on its ability to read and write. (As you explain when you say that people who couldn't read or write would not be hired or would be fired from that job.)

I teach ESL. 99% of the thousands of students I've worked with have limited English reading and writing abilities. Does that mean 99% of the American population does too?

To say 42 million Americans are completely illiterate is silly and it's not what the article is saying. He forgot to mention that that number also includes semi-literacy.

I also don't believe that the lack of newspapers is the culprit here. Your average newspaper has never been written above a sixth to eight grade level to begin with.

Too many people get their news and information from the propaganda the corporate media spews and then they think they are "educated".

Hell, I've seen the ignorance here on DU.

No wonder this country is so fucked up. x(

...researches on the internet from 2006 stated that people with poor news sources such as magazines, papers and the internet rely on the TV for their glimpse of the world.

sad situation in italy as well - i mean, as to papers unsold. TV rules (berlusconi knows it well) and 50% italians are NOT on the internet.

I read about 40 books last year, and got every one of them from the library.

Sounds like this guy (a journalist and author of 7 books) isn't getting the money he feels he deserves...

I have a list of books I'd like to buy that's six pages long. Kind of hard to buy them when your income is sporadic and has to go toward living expenses. Of course, if those people who think that buying books is an indication of something care to cough up a few bucks toward my book wish list...

Anti-intellectualism has been a thread in our national character for a very, very long time. There are many people out there who simply don't see a problem with widespread functional illiteracy-- and they're not just right-wingers who don't want to pay for schools.

But I don't buy newpapers because the MSM is selling us a line. I get my news from here. As for books, it's been years since I've been able to afford them. Library is my saving grace...but I bet that will be gone soon too. Socialism and public welfare, don'tcha know.

that is drawn from the literate portion of the population, now think of how common it is for people to enthusiastically respond to a post that they have clearly either not read or did not understand. How often do our college student members write opinions and positions that do not carry their point to any conclusion or make arguments that contradict the stated position? And don't even start counting grammatical, verb-tense, and usage errors.

Writers are forced to dumb down their work to make it salable, people's careers are ruined because they use terms that are beyond the level of the "average" dolt (remember the man that used 'niggardly' in his remarks?). We have invented the comic newspaper (USAToday) so that the functionally illiterate can pretend to be informed while avoiding "big words" and complicated ideas (but there's lots of bright colors!). The "graphic novel" has replaced books as the primary source of fodder for the studios. The examples are endless.

And when faced with the fact of our inadequacy, we deny, excuse, and ignore it, just read this thread.

I think that's the main reason Olbermann haters dislike Keith so much. He uses big words. I find that very refreshing, myself! Can't use 'em around here. If you do, you get pegged a "snob" and "elitist". Not that it ever stopped this elitist snob...

and most of them were very aware that they are not that bright. When I was younger, most would strive to overcome that and were adamant about their kids not following them. Over the last decade or two however, I've seen what appears to be a significant trend in the opposite direction.

Pride in ignorance is becoming/has become The American Way.

I couldn't agree more.

but my first computer science professor told the class that the first time he puts an equation on the board, half the class drops out. So now he just tells the class upfront, that they will need some math skills to do computer programming. If you're going to write accounting software, you have to understand compound interest. If you're going to write some types of engineering software, you have to understand pressure & velocity.

I worked as an exec assistant for many years & I can tell you that what passed for literacy from some of the top VPs was astounding! If I were a fourth grade English teacher I would have failed them. I worked for a very successful sales VP, who admitted that his English/grammar skills were lacking, so when he gave me his presentation to enter into Powerpoint, he would always wink & ask me to put my English spin on it.

I had a junior code-monkey that had managed to get his degree without ever learning the MOD function. He was working on a form generating application that required it's use and he didn't know how to do it. "Well", says I to myself, "maybe they have a different term in India and he just never ran into the function before, no biggie", and I tell him what to use.

Utterly blank stare. I could have told him to "polish the signatory using the rewiring from the cuneiform capacitor" and got the same result. He had managed to get a degree in computer science without ever grasping the concept of a modulus. At this point my boss walks in to get some information from me on the project and sees what's going on. So there we are, the two people in charge of this multi-million dollar contract standing at a whiteboard teaching a college graduate elementary long division and trying to shoehorn the concept of a remainder into this guy's head.

It's pretty amazing how far, and how quickly, we've fallen so far.

I get the point you're making but graphic novels are often very well written and complex. The studios often "dumb down" the story or take the simplest plot-lines that they can cram into 90 minutes/2 hours.

(Sorry about being a cheerleader but I'm a life-long comic book collector and I like to defend the art form.)

Fer instance, I reserved what I thought was "The Gunslinger" by Stephen King at the library, and got the graphic novel version. It was pretty good but it was to "The Gunslinger" novel as the film "Starship Troopers" was to Heinlein's novel. A pale imitation that hit some of the high points but completely lacked the spirit and meaning of the original work.

Many of the stories are complex & the characters are well developed. Not to mention some of the outstanding artwork!

I push this book whenever I can, especially since this is a political board.

We the People: A Call to Take Back America
by Thom Hartmann

http://www.we-the-people-book.com/

It's written in a comic book fashion & is a quick read. It is basically a refresher on civics. I feel it's critical reading today, since some of the concepts Thom discusses are no longer taught in schools, such as, the Commons & corporate personhood. I highly recommend this book for children & adults alike.

I've worked in the business for over ten years and editors have mostly stressed to their writers to keep the verbage written towards an eight grade level (Some even to fifth grade).

The business has tried to accommodate "teh stoopid", but as the old (IT) saying goes, "every time we idiot-proof the program, they build a better idiot".

Since you're in the business, you might have done this, read the same story in the Sunday Times, The NYT (pre-Murdoch), and USAToday, I still find it amusing.

Come to think of it, I really miss those chart and pie illustrations. :P

If you ask me for my personal opinion, the decline in newspaper readership is simply based on popular portions of the newspaper being slowly wiped out.. For decades they've taken some of the more popular pages (Comics, Crossword, Local news...) and squeezed the life out of them for the sake of more ad space.

Local reporting, another important section for your average reader, has been cut severely from many newspapers to cut costs. What your left with are desk editors whose jobs are cut down to simply pasting AP articles into what space is left over after the ads have been set.

I could go on about the decline of factories that supply the newsprint itself which is also an important factor, but i have a 2 year old demanding chocolate. :P

No reason to even pretend to play along with the glorification of drivel.

And yah, to the rest of what you said.

Comics that enjoyed 100,000+ issue printing in the 90's get a fraction of that now. A steady popular comic probably only gets an average printing of 20,000 copies these days. The emphasis on "collecting" killed the business a decade ago. It's why the big guns like DC and Marvel concentrate on movies and game deals. There just isn't any money in funny books.

Plus your average comic reader knows that their favorite series will be collected in 6 issue collections so there's no point in buying the single issues anymore.

is a "smart person's" product. But it's just a lie - we all know it's a lie. They're comic books.

Nothing wrong with comic books. I like comic books. Yay comic books!

But people who push for calling them "literature" or "graphic novels" are just pathetic.

But yah - the business/marketing angle, I completely understand.

I see this often in my second job as a graduate research assistant for a professor at a mid-size university. Most college juniors majoring in history at my school have a huge problem writing a coherent, one page memos on a scholarly article. I am extremely proactive in my daughter's education, even though she is only in first grade, so I can be certain she is learning what she needs to learn to be an well-rounded, intellectually curious adult. I believe that's what is missing in the US today: intellectual curiosity. People are content with what reality shows, cable news and the intertubes tell them and believe they do not need any more information.

regressive social policy.

send their kids to something other than public schools.

If a school system gets X amount of dollars per student, and parents can get a voucher for that amount or close to it, let them go to the type school of their choice.

both the east and west coast, acres and acres of pastureland where horses and cattle graze, many orange groves, sugar cane fields, crops of plump, juicy tomatoes, etc.

That is what you were going to type before you quit, isn't it?

In my experience Floridians are complete morons.

illiterate." General illiteracy is usually just undereducated.

BTW, moron and illiterate are not the same.

There were more than 3 billion (new) books sold last year, so unless those 20% of households who he claims are buying all the books are averaging a book purchase about every third day or so, then the 80% figure is probably bullshit ...

and that includes all books produced, textoboosk, just books...

And the evidence is startling... we do not live in a country of thinkers. Never have in fact. Most of our population is allergic to thinking and has been from word go.

Historically the only book a household owned on average was a Bible, when they owned any book.

10% have an IQ below 80 indicating moderate, mild or borderline mental retardation.

I applied last year for a job teaching adult literacy for a lumber company. They told me that an estimated 40-60% of their employees couldn't read well enough to understand safety protocols so they had to hire teachers to improve the literacy and numeracy of their workforce.

When I taught college freshmen I would sometimes ask what the last book they read for fun was. In a class of 25, usually only 2 or 3 kids could name a book that they had read for pleasure. The rest of them *did* occasionally read but it was magazines like People or Vogue. (And these are the top 20%ers)

I have met many functionally illiterate people who can read and write so long as what they are reading or writing can be in simple, declarative statements. They read and write in bullet points.

Part of my job is to develop, review, edit, or proof guidance documents and forms. Many times, I can't use the actual words, grammar, or phrasing that is correct for the concept that is being written about or provided as form instructions for users; I have to use the simple, 5th or 6th grade style of writing that I was doing at the age 8 or 9.

It no longer matters that one understands or can express a concept or reasoning behind an instruction or guidance, it only matters that one can follow directions and fill out forms. Thus, even important, complex, dangerous tasks can be done by people who's reading comprehension won't take them past anything more complex than the sidebar story "hooks" and opinion polls in USA Today or People Magazine.

Haele

It's one of my main pleasures in life, and has been since childhood. I've been to places in books that I would never be able to visit in real life.

Can't imagine a life without reading.

How about we try and help people who are illiterate or semi-literate, instead of mocking them?

My grandmother is more or less illiterate.

What the hell can we do to raise literacy in a country where so many people actually disdain learning? Disdain facts? Disdain science? Disdain reason?

This isn't one of those posts where I have all the answers, or even some of them, but your post is probably the most important one. If we could raise literacy rates, those "disdains" I was talking about above will be reduced. Maybe it's just the old teacher in me, but reading really is fundamental.

For starters, maybe if we spent the kind of money on education that we spend on the military....