54% of Americans from ages 16-74 read below a 6th grade reading level.

[𝔈𝔩𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔬]

I don't think I've ever been more ashamed of my country being under 30, without a college education and seeing so many American's whose profession should have them retaining better language and critical thinking skills, but don't.

It's not just that the way we communicate has changed, people are beginning to not be able to decipher simple sentences.

Why do I have to break out so much childish terminology for adults?

[Majestic Turkey]

Oprindeligt skrevet af T:

Geroge Bush was gonna teach kids to read right

Obama land
How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math? – Wirepoints Quickpoint
https://wirepoints.org/how-can-84-of-chicago-public-schools-students-graduate-when-only-26-of-11th-graders-are-proficient-in-reading-math-wirepoints-quickpoint/

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/district-of-columbia/districts/district-of-columbia-public-schools/ballou-stay-high-school-153323

https://notthebee.com/article/yikes-77-of-students-at-baltimore-high-school-read-at-or-below-elementary-level-only-19-read-at-their-actual-grade-level

D.C. math, reading test scores fall to lowest levels in more than 5 years
https://archive.is/20220903022838/https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/09/02/dc-schools-parcc-test/

"Stats for black students in San Francisco public schools (2021-22):

Math proficient: 9%. (It's 64% for whites.)
Chronically absent: 63%. (It's 8% for Asians.)
Ready for high school in 8th grade: 15%.
Enrolled in college after graduation: 45%.

Notice the disconnect? "
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1739705427556700246.html

[Acetyl]

Neurowarfare is a decent umbrella organizing principle.

eg:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315595429/military-neuroscience-coming-age-neurowarfare-armin-krishnan

Or just search the term.

[Acetyl]

Humans are too general purpose, and they move around too much. Beekeeper prefers predictable, so in the agricultural model the human behavioral spectrum becomes like any other treee you would prune down and gradually narrow.

[76561199648916059]

The funny thing is 54% of steam support has this same issue

[Haruspex]

Oprindeligt skrevet af 𝖠̶̶̅𝖨̶̶̅𝖬̶̶̅:

Why do I have to break out so much childish terminology for adults?

In general, people don't like being spoken down to. If you sound like you are smarter than your audience, they'll often assume you are doing it on purpose to make them feel stupid. Communicating simply and concisely while still communicating effectively is a bit of an art, and one that politicians often excel at.

Winston Churchill is an excellent example.

Short words are best, and old words are best of all.

Churchill was an extremely effective communicator. His speeches heavily used short words, Anglo-Saxon words, with a Shakespearean sort of cadence.

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.

Even Donald Trump, however you may feel about him. That man knows how to speak to his audience. His words are simple. His cadence is halting and casual, like he's speaking off the cuff to a friend or acquaintance, maybe after a few drinks.

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people.

[76561199648916059]

I honestly feel dumber reading that

[Good Night Owl]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Haruspex:

Oprindeligt skrevet af 𝖠̶̶̅𝖨̶̶̅𝖬̶̶̅:

Why do I have to break out so much childish terminology for adults?

In general, people don't like being spoken down to. If you sound like you are smarter than your audience, they'll often assume you are doing it on purpose to make them feel stupid. Communicating simply and concisely while still communicating effectively is a bit of an art, and one that politicians often excel at.

Winston Churchill is an excellent example.

Short words are best, and old words are best of all.

Churchill was an extremely effective communicator. His speeches heavily used short words, Anglo-Saxon words, with a Shakespearean sort of cadence.

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.

Even Donald Trump, however you may feel about him. That man knows how to speak to his audience. His words are simple. His cadence is halting and casual, like he's speaking off the cuff to a friend or acquaintance, maybe after a few drinks.

Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people.

I like this post you left here. Big words, and long descriptions is great in books to hold the attention of a reader. But I think if you're actually talking to people, anything other than getting the point across in the most timely and effective manner is just showing off. Unless it's a professional setting, where there's a need to maintain a serious, professional tone.

[Majestic Turkey]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Good Night Owl:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Haruspex:

In general, people don't like being spoken down to. If you sound like you are smarter than your audience, they'll often assume you are doing it on purpose to make them feel stupid. Communicating simply and concisely while still communicating effectively is a bit of an art, and one that politicians often excel at.

Winston Churchill is an excellent example.


Churchill was an extremely effective communicator. His speeches heavily used short words, Anglo-Saxon words, with a Shakespearean sort of cadence.



Even Donald Trump, however you may feel about him. That man knows how to speak to his audience. His words are simple. His cadence is halting and casual, like he's speaking off the cuff to a friend or acquaintance, maybe after a few drinks.

I like this post you left here. Big words, and long descriptions is great in books to hold the attention of a reader. But I think if you're actually talking to people, anything other than getting the point across in the most timely and effective manner is just showing off. Unless it's a professional setting, where there's a need to maintain a serious, professional tone.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

[Worlds fastest turtle]

I have basically been taking the pi$$ in the say something about the person above 2.0 thread, they all need this endless loop of feedback or they end up lost.

Easy to see who the kids are on here.

[permanent name]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Majestic Turkey:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Good Night Owl:

I like this post you left here. Big words, and long descriptions is great in books to hold the attention of a reader. But I think if you're actually talking to people, anything other than getting the point across in the most timely and effective manner is just showing off. Unless it's a professional setting, where there's a need to maintain a serious, professional tone.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

my butthole is the soul of my ass.

sometimes a soul is just a hole.

[Ulfrinn]

Yeah, seems people completely glossed over the fact that Gallup's economic that wrote the article made an unscientific attempt to attribute the scores of the 7 year old data to being a 6th grade level despite there being nothing besides their opinion to actually make that link.

The ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up part is I see a lot of articles based on that original Gallup study citing that Gallup study as fact without doing their own independent research into the methodology and just recycling the inaccurate headline to their readers.

Given the readers, heck, the people using Gallup's study as a source without verification and basing additional articles on that information is an example of poor reading comprehension. But, this is more of an issue of laziness, and journalistic malpractice on their behalf. And a combination of laziness and blind faith in media outlets on behalf of the reader. Two problems all their own, and two I would consider to be significantly worse in modern society.

You also have to understand that this "study" by the Gallup economist was funded by a charity that promotes itself as a charity designed to increase literacy. Meaning the worse they can make a "literacy problem" appear, the more donations they're going to receive to "fix" this problem. So take their paid-for study with a little context about it's source and motives.

[Prinzip]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Ulfrinn:

You also have to understand that this "study" by the Gallup economist was funded by a charity that promotes itself as a charity designed to increase literacy. Meaning the worse they can make a "literacy problem" appear, the more donations they're going to receive to "fix" this problem. So take their paid-for study with a little context about it's source and motives.

It's gotten to a point where I'm assuming any study that's put out has some agenda behind it. I guess reading books written by "respectable" professors bragging about drinking margaritas with Bill Gates on a beach didn't improve my worldview either.

I'll digress for a bit: I really don't understand the destructive, circular, self-reinforcing approach to this problem. Everybody's complaining about literacy rates... but doing nothing to change it. Social darwinism tearing the social fabric apart through idiocy and desire to signal their own virtue.

[Ulfrinn]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Plonk:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Ulfrinn:

You also have to understand that this "study" by the Gallup economist was funded by a charity that promotes itself as a charity designed to increase literacy. Meaning the worse they can make a "literacy problem" appear, the more donations they're going to receive to "fix" this problem. So take their paid-for study with a little context about it's source and motives.

It's gotten to a point where I'm assuming any study that's put out has some agenda behind it. I guess reading books written by "respectable" professors bragging about drinking margaritas with Bill Gates on a beach didn't improve my worldview either.

I'll digress for a bit: I really don't understand the destructive, circular, self-reinforcing approach to this problem. Everybody's complaining about literacy rates... but doing nothing to change it. Social darwinism tearing the social fabric apart through idiocy and desire to signal their own virtue.

Oh almost certainly. These studies cost money. People are going to spend that money if they're going to see some kind of a return on that in some way. If a study exists that they can point to that says their charity or organization needs more funding, then it's the same as taking out an ad for a product or service. So a charity that takes donations on the mission statement of improving literacy benefits from a study that claims there's this stark lacking in adult literacy.

That's why the "study" claims these adults can't read at a 6th grade level but if you actually read the data they used in that study, no such claims were ever made by the Department of Education, nor could any such conclusion be made from the data given. It's an advertisement.

The reason nobody is doing nothing to change it is because there's nothing to change. It's a fabrication. If you look at the DoE statistics, the age group listed scored right at the level 2 / level 3 boundary, and if you read the descriptions of what those levels mean, it describes essentially a high school reading level. This makes sense. According to the US Census Bureau over 90% of adults in the US have graduated high school. Several more have equivalency, meaning they're going to be reading at those levels or higher. Not sub 6th grade as claimed. Simply put, the problem doesn't actually exist in any large scale.

[Gat 8 Washington]

As an American, that number sounds WAY too ridiculous to be true, are you sure the source that you cited this from doesn't have any bias towards Americans, and not just propaganda? Or perhaps is the source not reliable? Does the source include immigrants or foreigners just learning English? Does it include people who hasn't experienced any amount of formal education before? Does it include U.S Territories that speak little English, like Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and others?
I've lived in America for most of my life, and the people I usually encounter clearly comprehend levels higher than 6th grade reading.

[Ulfrinn]

Oprindeligt skrevet af I LOVE SYSTEM OF A DOWN:

As an American, that number sounds WAY too ridiculous to be true, are you sure the source that you cited this from doesn't have any bias towards Americans, and not just propaganda? Or perhaps does this source include immigrants or foreigners just learning English?
I've lived in America for most of my life, and the people I usually encounter clearly comprehend levels higher than 6th grade reading.

Yeah, read the last page. It's BS.