New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels
cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/1006130
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The original was posted on /r/aboringdystopia by /u/Last_Salad_5080 on 2023-10-03 14:21:04.
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To play devils advocate, is this really a huge issue? As a construction worker friend of mine put it quite plainly, Most Americans don't really need to be able to read anything more comprehensive than street signs to do their jobs, a 6th grade reading level is pretty proficient, maybe a bit slower but it gets the job done
Edit: a lot of you seem to be taking this weirdly personally, just read further and pretend I'm not attacking you directly
But what about outside the job? Things like taxes, being able to determine the truthfulness of things you read online, etc?
That was what I was going to comment. Especially that second part. It makes me wonder if it all isn't by design. Well, yes, it is.
I mean, for some people, that's really not a priority, I've seen it plenty of times where people get by just fine being able to read but not dissect the text, tax papers are broken into simple clauses and with clear instructions, if that's a problem you can hire someone, if you're reading online articles you probably wither don't care enough to verify or trust the source because you chose to read that article, there's plenty of other ways to get your news, like TV or audio, those have the same problems as written news.
Now of course a good education is important, but If you're a redneck living in the sticks and not really concerned about things beyond your sphere and your car, and able to navigate polite society, I would argue that's your perogative. You're an adult and you have found your place in life just fine you have good friends, a good job and , a 7th grade reading level simply isn't that important. A 6th grade level is still pretty competent, hell, you could still probably even get through college with that, albeit with some troubl.
saying "no need to read whatsoever" implies half of people are straight up illiterate. They can read just fine, they just won't be parsing literary elements or huge multiple paragraph spanning articles if they don't want to
Well if our democracy is predicated on the idea that the populace governs itself, then the populous is being governed by people with a sixth grade reading level.
Man, don't you hope for a richer life than just being able to do things for your work though?
Personally I do but my point is, plenty of people do not, and they're perfectly happy that way.
I'm struggling to imagine that.
I'm sorry? I mean, despite what you think, their absolutely are people out there like that, they exist because they felt they learned enough and stopped learning. Nothing is stopping these full grown adults from going back to school or trying to improve themselves at home, they just. Don't.
I don't mean I don't think people want to go back to school, I mean I don't think people are happy to just work and be able to do not much else. Like I'm sure most people like playing an instrument or dancing or something.
It matters because being a responsible citizen in a democracy requires having good enough critical thinking and reasoning skills so as not to be easily misled or manipulated by bad-faith actors. If you can't read well, and it's not due to something like dyslexia, it speaks to your ability to follow complex ideas and fact-patterns and themes which in turn means that you're more likely to make poor political decisions.