New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels
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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As a former child this is nothing new to me. I remember how much I hated when the teacher had people read things out loud in English class. Hell honestly any class. The amount of people who read like every. Word. Had. A. Period. And the people who would read any word longer than 3 syllables like it was hy-phe-na-ted. It was fucking torture.
20 minutes to read one single page.
Yeah, this was torture in grade school. I figured it would get better in middle school.
Then it was torture in middle school and I thought it would get better in high school.
Then it was STILL torture in high school and I thought it would surely, surely get better in college.
Then I got to college and there were still mofos reading. like. this.
I am an engineer who oversees a team. Most of them can't write more than a coherent sentence. Code and analyze data, sure, but put together a coherent paragraph? Not really.
There's a weird ongoing thing in the programming world where about half of coders think code should be well-commented and the other half not only think that code shouldn't contain comments but also think that comments are an indicator of professional incompetence (aka a "code smell"). I've long noticed that the anti-commenting crowd are also the ones that can't write very well.
One way my code improves is by thinking what I need to comment. Then I refactor some and the comments become somewhat redundant.
I don't think I would agree to work with someone who doesn't comment their code.
I was basically driven out of my last job by someone who wouldn't agree to work with someone (me) who did comment their code. Like I said, it's a really weird dividing line in programming.
I am sorry that happened to you but it sounds like it was for the best. I work at a place where knowledge sharing is pushed for. Everyone shares what they know. It makes things so much easier even if we do "waste" time cross training.
My last job was me replacing the inhouse developer, I got it by demonstrating on the interview that I could reverse engineer his code. The versions he had put into production had all the comments stripped out and he had replaced every variable with random alphanumeric sequences about 8 characters long.
Shouldn't have known right there and then what kinda workplace I was dealing with.
I have had to tell software engineers time and time again that is is totally okay to make error strings beyond one sentence or one word. It almost seems to me that they never realized that strings can hold multiple sentences and and don't have relevant memory constraints.
I was shy-ish and didn't participate much, but I would often volunteer to read aloud. It was easier for everyone that way, since one of the few things I was exceptional at was reading
I also couldn't stand reading along with someone who couldn't. It was too painful
I got in trouble for correcting other kids that didn’t grasp phonics. In first grade. I was a little asshole but I was just trying to help. Also it was painful as hell.
Hooked on phonics worked for me.
... I'm actually not cracking a joke. One of the few memories I have from when I was very young (under maybe 6 or so) was going through hooked on phonics material.
In my college years, while not focused on language or communication (I'm an IT technician, specializing in computer networking) I became obsessed with the English language and it's been a long term study for me. I'm still learning new things all the time despite English being my only fluent language. The nuances of when to use what terms despite each term being roughly equivalent (such as: what is the difference is between "affect" and "effect"), and other such oddities and specifics. College didn't really tell me anything new about the language I speak, but dealing with everyone's terrible use of the language, and being misunderstood many times because of poor structure or word selection caused me to want to step up so I can reduce how many follow ups I have to deal with to clarify myself.
I find most people are almost unnecessarily terse, leaving out important context that they think is obvious and assume that everyone who receives their message will make the same observation, when it's not an obvious thing at all to many; this assumption is extremely common and often it's not something that even crosses into the minds of those doing it. Such assumptions often lead to misunderstandings and are the basis of more than a few ha ha funny jokes in sitcoms, all of which I find rather cringe.
As a society, we abuse language severely. By extension, otherwise mundane situations can turn hazardous or even lethal if a misunderstanding happens; and many leave a lot of the context, and a fundamental understanding of context, to the assumptions of the reader/listener. It's really dumb IMO.
If the literal majority of people are reading at a 6th grade level, the society in which we live should be making efforts to improve that. Bluntly, I shouldn't need to "read between the lines" to understand what you want me to do.
I ran your comment through a word analyzer, and you will be happy to know your text scored at a 12th grade level!
Unfortunately, that means that most Americans will be unable to comprehend what you wrote. Sort of a catch-22 I suppose, although it may provide a natural filtering device to filter out the idiots, I suppose.
Does it top out at 12th grade? Just wondering if there's room for improvement on that tool alone.
nuances of when to use what terms despite each term being roughly equivalent (such as: what is the difference is between "affect" and "effect")
Maybe it's an effect of me having English as a 3rd language, but... what nuance? They're two different words.
I find most people are almost unnecessarily terse, leaving out important context that they think is obvious and assume that everyone who receives their message will make the same observation
I shouldn't need to "read between the lines" to understand what you want me to do.
I've been told that's an aspect of being on the autistic spectrum, that "normal people" will have no trouble picking up on the missing context.
Always sounded to me like an excuse for being sloppy, like maybe the lazies are lowering the "autism" bar too low... but who am I to judge anyone, but a simple chap on the spectrum.
I can usually (about 98% of the time) pick up on the assumed context. I recognise that not everyone does, so I try not to make the assumption. For me that goes back to the curse of knowledge problem more than anything. It makes sense to me because I know the context and underlying information about the matter. I try not to make an assumption that everyone will know that when reading my notes/emails/documentation/etc.
Native English speakers use affect and effect fairly interchangeably, so most don't know the difference because they haven't opened dictionary.com in a decade or more.
I found this hilarious to read.
Take it from another would-be English major who found a career in IT infrastructure. We are the ones with the problem over-explaining things because we value having a full information set over being concise. The thing is I agree with you that people are overly terse, or maybe more directly people are unable to process long blocks of information. It's frustrating, because I would rather have it all in one place to reference back to.
But I've found the flip side of that is that in my efforts to ensure there is no possible way to misconstrue my communication, I lose everyone in its length. Yes it would be nice if everyone was able to digest what amounts to a technical manual-cum-email so they have a full understanding. But the reality is that the vast majority of people cannot. They simply shut down and stop reading. Therefore it is my responsibility to adjust my delivery to be most effective for the intended audience. This includes fewer words, more direct points, and less supporting details unless asked for more.
I guess my point is, I see myself in your comment. And I wanted to share that I used to feel that way but time has softened my outlook and opened me to the idea that I'm definitely complicit in the overall lack of understanding by failing to account for my audience.
Look at that, there I go rambling again!
I understand. The way I've taken to structure my messages is to provide the terse summary up front then elaborate as I go, summarize tersely at the end and re-pose any pressing questions. This way the reader can mostly skip the middle of my email and go from the executive summary at the top and forward themselves to the last few sentences and hit reply. If they want more detail, it's all there.
I try to keep away from any overly technical jargon, and kind of "dumb it down" aka, use non-technical language as much as I can while still keeping to the point and being accurate. If they want the technical jargon version, they can ask, but they never do.
I find it helps me since I can go back and reference the information if I need it, or point the client to it and go over it with them later if they ask at a later date.
I don't know if that's something that's possible with your work, but it seems to minimize the follow ups and the end user seems to be happy most of the time. There's always a few that will complain, but I've gotten more compliments on my communication style than anything.
I never had patience for that and would just read ahead and ignore the person speaking.
Kids read like that because they know if they make a mistake they will get a lower grade. Better to be slow and correct.
This happened all the way through highschool.
I don't know in that case.