How is it possible that roughly 50% of Americans can’t read above a 6th grade level and how are 21% just flat out illiterate?
Question above is pretty blunt but was doing a study for a college course and came across that stat. How is that possible? My high school sucked but I was well equipped even with that sub standard level of education for college. Obviously income is a thing but to think 1 out of 5 American adults is categorized as illiterate is…astounding. Now poor media literacy I get, but not this. Edit: this was from a department of education report from 2022. Just incase people are curious where that comes from. It does also specify as literate in English so maybe not as grim as I thought.
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That was me in the early 80s. It's why I took first grade twice.
I was lucky though. My mother just happened to be a remedial reading teacher. So after she tried every other option, she broke down and finally tried phonics. That was the missing piece. it suddenly all made sense to me.
Turns out memorization is my biggest learning disability. It would be impossible for me to memorize thousands of words. But with some work, I could memorize the sounds of a couple dozen letters.
After that I was a reading machine.
Still can't spell for shit though. Been relying on spell check since the 3rd grade.
Well either you or spell check did a pretty decent job with that there post.
It's a team effort.