Posted on 07/28/2023 3:26:08 PM PDT by simpson96
What qualifies as being literate in the United States? It all depends on your measurement. According to the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), literacy is defined as, “understanding, evaluating, using and engaging with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” This seems quite broad, yet is used to show the Literacy Gap Map on the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy site. It is here that the map details where 36 million of U.S. population doesn’t meet the threshold for even basic literacy. However, there is no description of basic literacy.
Then there is the Flesch-Kincaid Score, which determines the grade level that someone is capable of reading based on sentence length and the amount of syllables within the words. The mathematical formula is thus: FKRA = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) – 15.59. Using this method, it is determined that The New York Times is at a college age reading level, which would only meet the most elite of readers. Whereas, the BBC is more at a 6th grade reading level (readable.com).
You may, also, recall that during President Obama’s second term there was high interest in Cuba and its ability to raise their literacy rates to 99%. Cuba’s success was highlighted, the State Department loosened tensions, and the administration eventually promoted “educational” tourism to the communist island. The problem is that we don’t really know the reading level of the 99% of “literate” Cubans.
Additionally, Gary Marx of the Chicago Tribune wrote the article “Mixed marks for Cuban education” in 2002 that questioned what kind of literacy the Cuban government was bestowing on its pupils as they aged. He wrote, “Instead of stock market clubs, Junior ROTC and debate teams, the Cuban government imparts its values to older students through required classes that teach sacrifice, patriotism, collectivism and a militant defense of national sovereignty, all in the context of glorifying the Cuban Revolution.” So as much as our politicians and educators touted Cubans ability to read and write, Cuba is not allowing the employment of critical thinking skills.
It is within this context that the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) released it’s draft literacy plan last month. Credit is due to those who devised this plan. They, finally, want to lay the groundwork for a more streamlined approach to teaching reading and writing throughout the state. The ISBE believes teachers shouldn’t have to juggle several different curricula to get to the end goal. Overall, education has been lopsided, tilting more toward science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) for about a two decades instead of a more balanced approach promoting all core subjects.
Thus, our students’ abilities to read, write, and communicate orally have diminished. Kudos to those who are now rushing to plug the dike, but red flags go off when any report uses the word “equitable” repeatedly. Also, one has to question how we let literacy droop to begin with. Every subject area requires reading, writing, and oral skill. But somehow we’re failing?
Illinois has expectations of its “stakeholders.” First, we need to look at its definition of literacy. The ISBE defines literacy as “the ability to identify, understand, interpret, evaluate, create, compute, and communicate effectively through using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context.” In other words, students who are literate should be able to read and comprehend text, critically think about what they are reading, draw conclusions, and articulate their thoughts in a variety of ways. By the time they are adults (starting at age 16), PIACC expects that readers can answer simple comprehension questions found in articles, graphs, or paychecks. For example after reading a few paragraphs about a 23-year-old championship swimmer, readers have to answer at what age this swimmer started their competitive swimming, which will be found farther down in the article. Or they will ask a reader to review a pay stub and locate much the person has earned year to date.
For sure, these skills are important. How to get there, however, is up for debate. Those who are scoring lowest on basic skills are from poor areas, may also be minorities, and many of those tested have a primary language that is not English.
Furthermore, the ISBE report lays out a clear plan for parents of even the youngest children. These stakeholders should have a literacy rich household and access to libraries. In a perfect world this would be great. But the stakeholders in impoverished areas of Chicago may not be literate themselves, may not have access to libraries, and may not have many books on the shelves. Are there ways around these hurdles? Of course, but they are not in the report.
Here are some tips: If a parent or grandparent is lacking in reading abilities, older children can help younger children with basic alphabet letter recognition, phonemic sounds, and by reading aloud; any print material can be read from items like a recipe to the back of a cereal box; and oral storytelling is always an avenue. There are online resources like Storyline Online where celebrities read aloud. Reading is all around us from street signs to labels. The ability to write, at minimum, requires a stick and dirt. Retelling a story underscores listening and verbal skills.
Thus, excluding those needing extra services for a diagnosed learning disability, the only excuse for illiteracy is apathy.
But Mayor Brandon Johnson’s education plan is more focused on ideas beyond the purview of best educational practices for children. For example, he wants to hire students to create a youth council to “guide school decisions,” he wants to secure low income housing, he wants to provide free college tuition for those who decide to become teachers, and he emphasizes equitable access to education for illegal immigrants (Chalkbeat Chicago). How to pay for these worthy causes is never discussed (other than to point out that Covid monies have ceased to exist) nor is there a discussion connecting Johnson’s goals and Illinois’ plan to increase literacy.
Agreement between the ISBE and Mayor Johnson is found with those whose primary language is not English. These children are to be catered to. Yet studies have proven that if you want to learn a new language, you must be immersed in that foreign language. “Speak, listen, respond – communicate!” as Maija Kozlova of Cambridge said in the article “The benefit of immersive language-learning experiences and how to create them.” Yet for every study found supporting immersive language learning, there are equal that support teaching in both primary and secondary languages.
Admittedly, there are studies that can support any argument. And this is why we see cycles in education with new ways to teach curriculum. These bandwagons are financial boons for text book companies but do little to raise scores.
For example, in the 1980s literacy education shifted away from separate areas of study within reading. It was becoming taboo to have actual phonics books and spelling books. Instead, the idea of whole language by Kenneth Goodman took the country by storm. His ideas coupled with linguist Noam Chomsky’s (and others’) theories of acquiring language challenged traditional teaching methods. Whole language was more engaging by allowing texts, themselves, and creative teachers to become all that was needed to guide children’s literacy.
Why this was and is a radical idea is really quizzical. After all, how did people learn to read prior to text book companies? They used the Bible and nursery rhymes.
Regardless, the idea behind whole language was to teach based on theme. If, for instance, a teacher chose to tell the biblical story of “Jonah and the Whale,” social studies lessons could be about the oceans. In science, students could study whales. Goldfish crackers could be used as counters to add or subtract in math. Reading would be centered on phonics, spelling, and vocabulary drawn from the story itself. Depending on their age students would then write a sentence and draw a picture about their favorite part of the story, or, if older, the students would write a retelling or summary. Class discussions could go deeper about various themes of the story—obedience, punishment, second chances. Students could even create their own plays.
If done correctly, immersing students in the same theme for a week before moving on to a new theme was productive and enjoyable for students and teachers. However, now that whole language is verboten, the pendulum of literacy studies is swinging back towards allocating separate times for spelling, phonics, reading, and writing in hopes it will aid our literacy problem.
But one thing that never goes away in the ISBE report is the amount of assessments students are subjected to annually, which makes reading and writing less pleasurable and eats up considerable classroom time. Are we teaching literacy to create lifelong, curious readers? Or are we merely looking for numerous receipts when only one will do.
What is most amusing is the ISBE’s emphasis on having “high-quality literacy resources including physical materials.” The ISBE is also encouraging handwriting! After having kids stuck online during Covid and switching most physical reading materials to computerized texts, Illinois districts will be spending millions on text books while at the same time Mayor Johnson is committed to providing free laptop computers and Wi-Fi to Chicago’s students. Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson better get in sync.
To be clear, there is a literacy problem plaguing our country, Illinois, and, in particular, Chicago. But using someone’s race, color, and primary language as excuses for low performance is cowardly. Pouring billions of dollars into a broken system will not help children read. And the expectation that teachers must “implement curriculum equitably and with fidelity to combat the barriers that may exist outside the classroom environment” is ridiculous. Teachers can only control what is inside their classrooms. Compassion of a student’s unique situations doesn’t mean teachers should allow some students to slide while the rest are held to standards.
First, we need a definitive definition of literacy in America. Studies show 79% of Americans are literate. But what is the threshold? A third grade reading level? A sixth grade reading level?
Next, we need to stop comparing ourselves to countries whose population consists of monoethnicity. How many different ethnic groups are in Japan, for example? Having said that, we need to return to being a melting pot and calling ourselves American all having the same values regardless of where we first arrived from. Thus we need to end the DEI movement that is splitting us apart. Lastly, we need to end the zeal for educational bandwagons.
If we really want literate children, then do what has always worked: Teachers and/or parents who could read a story aloud with such fluidity and expression that children are begging for more; provide physical books that can be reread over and over again with a literate guide to help with phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and vocabulary; create a thirst for reading by emphasizing that books can take you anywhere in and out of the universe; demand that reading and writing is cross-curricular; and promote the fact that writing is the one thing children control in the school day. After all, they choose the direction their story or essay will go, they make words choices, they choose the proper voice for their audience, they add or subtract sentences for clarity, etc. If parents and teachers continue failing to engage children in these areas, our illiteracy rate will continue to grow.
Yes, we are allowing liberals to destroy civilization. They are willing to have millions of lives extinguished to get their socialism.
It’s the 21st century version of the 20th century liberal.
Only if you’re too lazy to make sure your children know how to read.
It’s not entirely up to the school you send them to. It’s also your responsibility.
Libtards will do anything to keep people from reading the Bible
Kids have no interest in reading. Kids are interested in TikTok and YouTube shorts.
Dexter Manley made the NFL Hall of Fame, no clue how to read.
It was actually sad, he got real upset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frZZ32cTqQs
Illiterate and uneducated people vote Democrat! That’s how they’re being propagandized and conditioned.
Last week we went to a birthday party where the people who's birthday we were celebrating was suppose to read their birthday cards. The youngest was 12, the oldest was in his late thirties.
None of them were able to read without stumbling over words and getting help.
Education is racist didn’t you know.
The new Jim crow law.
One of our grandchildren was struggling with reading in the second grade, so we bought some reprints of old Catholic school readers and spent some time with her. She’s reading fine now and knows a lot of biblical stories.
BTW, I recall a study that was conducted a few years ago on the greatest predictor of literacy in children. It wasn’t reading to them and it wasn’t early childhood education. The children who read the best came from homes that had a lot of reading material in them.
Indeed. Satan is very very busy, because he knows he’s running out of time, and he wants to take as many people as he can with him, and it’s all because he thought he was entitled to rule over all of creation.
I’m sorry to hear that.
Why do you think, that back in the day, “they” did not want the slaves to be literate?
Kids are curious little humans and they see books on lower shelves they will pull them off and look at them. Bright colors and pictures help but even books with just prose will be leafed through.
My nine year old can read better then the adults there. These are not poor people who did not have a proper education. They attended decent public schools.
Literacy has become complex. There are some youth who are literate in video games that are now the basis of most Business software. Some are just literate in the alphabetic world. Some are literate in both. Some are illiterate in all.
I am mostly illiterate in new Business software based on find the hidden key, the hidden coin. And the game is really to kill the Business User. The game is to see how long the Business User can stay alive before killed.
And many of my younger colleagues are illiterate in SQL and text approaches.
And then there are a few that can do both.
A firm with which I interface seems lost and unable to do antything.
That's the story out there. We learned in school that slaves were denied education and they were all poor.
Actually there were many wealthy blacks. Some owned plantations and thousands of blacks were slave owners. I don't believe anything anymore that the education establishment or the government tell us.
You have been out of school for some time and information is freely available.
Why are you still assuming that all blacks were slaves?
They were not.
All red, yellows, browns and whites were not free either.
And there were any number of slaves that had side jobs that allowed them to buy their freedom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.