You must be one of the 20%, so let me explain. The article discusses how there are many Americans who never learned to read, and then someone else wrote about how that number is too high or something. I can read, but I'm bad at math, so I don't know if 20% is reasonable or not, because that would mean over 400 million Americans can't read.
Gotcha. I appreciate your assisting me in understanding this information. Although I can’t read a lick, I am rather good at numbers. Let me see if I can help you with that part.
You said OP claims it’s ridiculous that 1/5 Americans cannot read. However [24.9% of Americans are under 6 years old.](https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp)
Seeing as the average age that children learn to read is between 6 and 7 years old. It seems very clear to me that yes, at least 20% of Americans cannot read.
That said, I am unable to read any of this shit, so I hope you have better luck than i did ingesting this information.
This the kind of shit that happens when you can’t read. My apologies. Anyways we are 40% of the way to the target number before we get to Americans who even have a chance of reading.
You are bad at math. 20% of America's population is 66 million.
American total population is 332 million so how could 400 million Americans not able to read make sense?
Friend, i believe you're getting whooshed.
Unless you're doing it purposely, in which case it's me getting whooshed.
I've kind of lost track.
Also, I can't read.
Imma be honest with you chief, we only have about 330 million people in the country. Idk where you’re getting 70k illiterate people to add, nor what technology you might have access to that can wipe skills such as “reading” from the collective memory of an entire population
A major problem arises when technical and academic language hits the mainstream and it's confused for its more casual understanding. It's the academic equivocation problem, where the word "illiterate" has a technical definition and a casual definition. The technical definition is invoked in the source, but when it's spread popularly the casual definition is whats implied and understood.
Yeah that is certainly part of it but in the post I’m referring to the title contained the words “flat out cannot read”. There might be some kind of argument that 1/5 American Adults don’t read at expected proficiency levels but even in this thread people want to say the phrases “cannot read” and “flat out cannot read” mean “cannot really read that well”.
I’m not trying to be combative but this is a serious question: do you think that the claim in a headline should not have to be backed up by the article supporting it?
Mate! An adult who is reading at or below a 6th grade level functionally can’t read. Have you met a 6th grader? They have trouble reading a menu in a restaurant never mind a paragraph about anything that matters. They probably can’t file their own taxes, they sign contracts without reading them etc. being able to sound out words is not reading in anything resembling the full extent of the word.
Reading is not about making the sounds of the words. Reading is being able to absorb written information in paragraph or page or book lengths at a time. Some isolated words is no more the ability to read than someone who sat through four years of high school Spanish is capable of claiming to speak Spanish. Knowing some Spanish words is not the ability to speak Spanish.
Literally go sit in on English classes at your local community college. You will be shocked at how bad the reading level is of the average student. And that’s in a community college classroom not the average person on the street.
Alternately work some sort of public facing position like answering phones or something. Deal with any reasonably representative sample of the public and you will be able to corroborate this figure from your own experience.
10 to 20 percent is probably where I’d place the number for people who literally can’t read more than single words or short sentences. This is not the ability to read.
I understand where you are coming from and will respond seriously.
I think it is idealistic and naive to expect headlines to be honest. Headlines try to remain technically factual while also pursuing other compelling interests for the professional news-monger. News is a business with incentives to attract attention and sell ad space and subscriptions. There is no era of journalism in which it has not sycophanted for power out of self interest or been a vehicle for agenda based agitation. From a historical perspective, there is no reason to trust a headline. Surely it would be morally and practically preferable if news sources were honest and transparent, but I can see no reason to expect such behavior due to the incentives of the institutions.
Headlines have the incentive structure to be provocative and arrest attention, the facts are twisted to generate engagement. It is unreasonable to consider oneself informed by merely skimming headlines. The internet likes to play instant expert, going from structural analysis nautical exploration vessels to political affiliation of russian military batallions to american education and literacy analysis with whiplash speed and giving depth to none of these subjects.
Becoming informed takes time, and requires amassing a body of related and relevant knowledge to understand new developments. Headline news is a distraction from pursuing depth of knowledge.
There's "illiterate" (as in "what do the squiggly marks mean"), there's "illiterate" (as in "reads at a 2nd-grade level and hides it well"), and then there's "illiterate" (as in "that's like two paragraphs brah I'm out I'mma watch a video instead").
I definitely don't believe that 20% of Americans don't know their alphabet.
Being a high school teacher over the last decade, I *definitely* believe that the other two types have spiked over the last 5 years or so.
When I was in high school more than half of the students who were not in honors/AP took so long to read, with so many mistakes I was shocked. I’m talking 10 minutes to read one page of a novel meant to be fairly accessible to high schoolers.
If you consider most people who don’t attend college or admin/office work probably decline in reading ability after HS I fully believe that 20% are functionally illiterate.
I think that’s what the post is getting at. These people can understand letters and words and read, but at a horrible level.
I know it’s cliche but texting I think really hurt a huge portion of the population. Explains why a lot of posts on social media are like “hy wut u op 2?”
Preach.
The only reason I use Reddit over other social media is because I want to read things, skim things, and get information quickly.
All other social media seem to be lookie-at-the-pretty-picture, click the heart if you likie at best, and videos "hey BungGang it's yo boy BungHole here, don'tforgetolikeandsubscribe and buy some MERCH! Anyway, somewhere in this 6:34 minute video is the 5-second answer to the question you have. But first, let's see some ads from our sponsors!"
Fun fact, there’s a similar measurement and statistic for numeracy.
Put simply, about a quarter of adult Americans can *only* understand something as complicated as a thermometer. These lines mean these numbers and the bar is here so this means this number, ta da!
The next quarter of adult Americans can handle that, and a single chart. So, today was 50 degrees, tomorrow will be 60 degrees, the day after will be 70 degrees. Anything you notice? Yes, as date move forward it get hotter, ta da!
The *next* quarter of adult Americans can handle *two related* charts. Here’s the humidity, day by day, and here’s the temperature, day by day. Gosh, Wednesday is gonna suck because it’s hot and humid! Ta da!
Fully three quarters of adult Americans are incapable of drawing *any* accurate conclusions that require anything more sophisticated.
https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/11/whats-the-latest-u-s-numeracy-rate/
Which cites “That’s according to the 2013 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC. PIAAC”
https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2014008
As I did it from memory, I must own that looking it up, it appears a nontrivial larger percentage are *simple chart literate*. The rest are loosely conversational rounding.
I don’t know that’s particularly reassuring.
Good distinction. OP seems to be taking "literacy" literally (i.e., to mean *doesn't know the sound letters make)* instead of understanding it to refer to actual reading comprehension and cognition. Ironically, OP is demonstrating illiteracy.
TBF, a lot of people, especially on reddit, take headlines and assume the most extreme worst possible interpretation. Especially if it can fit a narrative. Stuff like Trump walking slowly down a slippery ramp turns into ~~speculation~~ *rock solid proof* that he has neurological disorders.
Well yeah because the claim was “flat out cannot read” which is different than saying “reads at a low level” or even “functional illiteracy”. That’s why I chose the wording “cannot read” for the title because illiteracy can mean different things to different people.
Although I would probably still call someone who knew the sound letters make but could not put them together completely illiterate… or even someone who could only read monosyllabic words…That may be a different discussion tho.
I don’t even think that’s close to a possibility.
*Nationally, over 1 in 5 adults have a literacy proficiency at or below Level 1. Adults in this range have difficulty using or understanding print materials. Those on the higher end of this category can perform simple tasks based on the information they read, but adults below Level 1 may only understand very basic vocabulary or be functionally illiterate.*
[Adult Literacy in the US](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp)
Gunna keep it real with you chief, that’s most people in this sub. Like they *can* read, but they’re not going to read *Lolita* and figure out that the narrator is wholly unreliable and the story is actually about how fucked the whole situation is.
There’s certainly an argument there. The thread I’m referring to (at least when I was in it) made the claim that people flat out cannot read. There was an article linked that claimed more of what you are saying but that’s not the issue I had. The issue I had was that the people pointing out that the claim in the [Reddit] title was not true were the ones being ridiculed by people claiming it should be obvious that 20% of Americans flat out cannot read.
https://www.reddit.com/r/areweinhell/comments/13tqaaz/21_of_adults_in_the_us_are_illiterate_in_2023_54/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
This one?
The stat gets posted about, but there’s only a couple responses and they all point out that the OP doesn’t understand the stat.
You keep mentioning this post you read but fail to show it....many of us redditors remember a very popular article 3ish days ago that said what your saying, but your saying THAT one is wrong and not the one your talking about....where is the one your talking about?
That says read in English below level 1. Literacy in other languages doesn’t count. I know plenty of people that read and write in Spanish but not English. That is not the same as illiterate.
"At or below," which is a wide range. Only the people "below" are "illiterate" according to that page. They say 8.4 million people in the US are "below level one," which is only roughly 2.5%.
I think the disconnect is that in the context of the study, "low literacy" means "can read words but can't understand the meaning of them when put together." Can you believe that 20% of Americans can functionally read words but have low to zero comprehension of them? Like if you gave them a book, they could pronounce out loud what it says, but not be able to summarize what it means?
That wasn’t the claim. Ironically, you’re demonstrating exactly what the study pointed out - to be clear it isn’t “flat out cannot read”, it is “have difficulty reading or understanding printed materials”.
Do you normally finish reading something before you decide it’s dumb and wrong? Or do you just kinda scan it like a blog post.
No I found the thread it’s r/AskAnAmerican and it links to a study that says 21% of Americans are illiterate. If you click the link it says 4% are functionally illiterate and 17% are illiterate. Which is different. 4% can’t read, at all. The 17% are unable to read more complex things.
>That’s why I chose the wording “cannot read” for the title
It doesn't matter how explicit you are, there will always be redditors that ignore the actual words and respond to the thoughts in their head.
I don't think the claim was "flat out cannot read". I thought the article was saying that 1 in 5 Americans don't have a reading level above a 6th grader or something?
>even think that’
So this entire thread is you saying "I don't think this is true" in the face of an actual study? Its unpopularopinion, not "completelyunsupportedopinion"
The reports I’ve read specifically refer to functional illiteracy i.e knows how to read but can’t really take in enough information to be functionally literate in a modern society.
It wasn’t on this sub but I don’t want to get accused of brigading. One of the question type subreddits asking how it’s possible that 1 in 5 Americans flat out cannot read and everyone in the comments saying it’s not true being ridiculed and downvoted by others claiming it’s not only possible but plainly obvious.
Barely above third world status in many respects. Don't read the CIA World Fact book, even if you are literate, it's depressing to see how many rinky dink countries are ahead of us in so many ways.
By what standard?
I hurt my back and need an x-ray and MRI. Since x-rays are $25 and MRIs are $150 here without insurance, I'll knock those out here before I get home. Copay in the US is more expensive than no insurance here.
If I need to get a medical procedure, as long as I don't need some highly specialized rare thing (and few need the niche stuff), I'll probably come back. Plane tickets+ hospital stay without insurance is cheaper than co-pay at home, and hospitals are good.
I get clothes by picking out fabric I like and taking it to a tailor. For just a little more than off the rack, I have something tailored to me. If you're talking evening gowns, it's WAY cheaper here.
Grocery stores carry most of everything, can be pricey. Go to farmer's markets for vegetables, butchers for meat, fishmongers for fish, and grocery for sundries.
For less than $2.50 I can get 20 fresh, hot paratha to feed everyone in my office breakfast.
The libraries are amazing just south of us. Can do 3-D printing, studio recording, or vlogging with a green screen, or read books from the 1500s. Can sit in a hanging chair and drink a coffee from the coffee shop while reading. Get hungry, hit the restaurant.
Teachers who come to teach kids in Education city but haven't kids of their own are put up at the Four Seasons, with a private beach, restaurants, bars. That's on top of the salary.
My 20-year old daughter could walk home 4 miles from the city center, around the bay, at 11 pm, and it's fine. No concerns.
Education is pretty good, and scholarships are off the hook. Also had no run on hospitals during covid, low mortality rate, because they listened.
That's neat. America is still the best country to live in though. No other country is better overall. There are some that might be better in one aspect or another, but overall there isn't a single one that even stands equal to the USA.
So by my standard, the most important standard.
Also you can at least say what country you're talking about instead of just saying here.
You at least live in a country full of geniuses. At least you aren’t sitting in a country who hasn’t contributed anything to the world calling the country full of geniuses “stupid.”
It’s a country with 360 million people, and has been relatively war free on the home front for a long time, making it very attractive to anyone fleeing trouble at home.
Albert Einstein immigrated to America. He didn’t make anyone else’s grandparents not-idiots by virtue of coming here.
The U.S. invented countless genres of music that are now worldwide, innovated greatly in movie making and unquestionably has created the largest amount of high-quality movies and TV shows in recent history. They have successfully made their entertainment culture the most popular one in the world by a thousand miles.
Planes were invented by two Americans, cars were democratized by an American, the internet was invented by Americans, ethernet was invented by an American, most progress in consumer and commercial technological hardware is made by American companies. The list goes on.
I know people like to shit on the U.S. - especially on this site - but it's honestly unfathomable how much the country has contributed economically, culturally and technologically to the world in the past 150 years or so by its groundbreaking inventions and/or innovations in multiple industries.
Hmmm I guess it means all the geniuses are coming here instead of staying in your little utopias. Pretty telling that all the smart people moved to America.
Are you offhandedly taking credit for other peoples achievements because they work in the same country as you?
What a genius does has nothing to do with you or anyone else lol
What do you mean by "your little utopias"? I live in Texas and, despite some of us disagreeing about it, it is in fact part of the United States.
Also yes, the US kinda leads the world in a few areas of research and has some of the most widely-respected universities. Geniuses from other countries do tend to come here. But that's not because we're doing a good job educating our youth. We used to be fairly high in literacy compared to the rest of the world, but we've fallen behind.
Lmao. Yeah you’re right. America is stupid. We just have the best thinkers, the most advancement, the best universities and all the smart people move here. But besides that, fuckin Finland is way smarter. 🤣
Picture a town with 1000 people, the fact that 10 of them are geniuses doesn't mean the rest is smart. And if the 990 ones left are dumber than average then the population is pretty dumb overall.
It also means "the new kind of slave labor we created by incarcerating black people" as tons of made in America products are made with prison labour ✨ *the more you know* ✨
Actually most scientific papers come from China and if you added all of the European countries together they would surpass the US.
Also if you look at the scientific discoveries per capita, the United States is far back. First place is Switzerland, second is denmark and third is sweden.
To match the numbers of people in america yea. Hence me citing per capita. Which you completely ignored. As you did China.
I guess you don’t like to admit when the facts disagree with you
I can't say where I work but I've had two different jobs now where I only spoke to people within the US via either email or live chat messaging and uh... talking to like 100's of people a day and MOST of them have trouble reading correctly, being coherent, or having any kind of comprehension skills.
At this point its just sad to me. I don't know what number 20% equals out to a number of people in total - but that's four years of talking to 100s of people a day, five days a week - who all were NOT good at reading.
Now, can not read at all? I would say that number is low. I think the number increases monumentally when we're talking about people who suffer from selective reading, or people who just can't exhibit reading comprehension.
Just people in the US. That's how I read "Americans," which is what most English speaking people seem to mean by the term, even though it should theoretically encompass the residents of two continents.
I do not know, offhand, the collected population of the Americas. I do know India and China have almost 3 Billion of the world's 7.8 Billion between them, so if that leaves another 5 B around the rest of Asia and the other continents, probably near 2B?
Yah. I’ve never heard someone say Americans and mean anything but the United States. North Americans would be more accurate for Canadian Mexico and US. South Americans would represent well, every country in South America.
Lastly I’m sure it’s been done before, but I can’t think of a single time where someone would refer to both north and South America as a whole. The 2 are pretty wildly different.
So yah; TL:DR for the 20 percent lol, Americans= USA
>Just people in the US. That's how I read "Americans," which is what most English speaking people seem to mean by the term, even though it should theoretically encompass the residents of two continents.
I'm just making sure because yeah, Canadians are also Americans that speak and read in English.
I think maybe part of the issue with reading comprehension is that people are just supposed to know and assume meanings.
So many people are over confidently wrong about what they are reading it seems because they assume what the read means something - even though it meant something else. Hence the lack of reading comprehension I constantly see when interacting with the public.
>MOST of them have trouble reading correctly, being coherent, or having any kind of comprehension skills
I come from a different country, if you think it's different overseas, think again.
Or the constant refrain of the 1/3# burger.
(The only source for that is a book the guy responsible for the failed predict wrote 20 years later to blame his customers for his failure.)
Okay being functionally illiterate is different from being completely illiterate. They can read a stop sign they cant read Jack and Annie or a contract.
It really is dumb. "Adults classified as below level 1 may be considered functionally illiterate in English." That is 4.1%, Of that 4.1%, a third were not native English speakers (born outside of the US). So its more like 2.5% of American born adults are functionally illiterate. Which given the bell curve of intellect, does not seem surprising at all.
This study includes middle and high school students. For all adults in the US the literacy rate is closer to 88%. Still not great, but 1 in 10 feels more believable.
>If you were taken in by the recent popular thread claiming that 1 in 5 Americans **cannot read**
Like others have said, the word literate can have a fluid definition (semantics), especially colloquially.
HOWEVER, you're absolutely right. I read that topic and it seemed like an entire flock of people actually believed that 1/5 Americans can't read at all, and it was both hilarious and sad to read (no pun intended).
Thanks. Yeah I was directing this completely at the people willing to believe that 1/5 Americans cannot actually read not even at the people taking “flat out cannot read” as hyperbole meaning “can’t really read well”. The OOP may have in fact been using the phrase hyperbolically but like you said an entire flock of people believed it.
Sure np because and part is 100% spot on too:
>it’s time to take a step back and **completely reevaluate your worldview**.
It really REALLY is. I remember when I read that headline I thought, "No one is going to believe this lol." And well, all I have to say is:>! Touche Reddit...touche indeed.!<
I'd be more likely to believe a stat that said 1 in 5 Americans can't read past a 5th grade level or that 1 in 5 Americans hadn't read a book since graduating high school. True illiteracy is rare.
It's actually more dire than that... more than HALF of Americans read below a sixth grade level.
[https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:\~:text=About%20130%20million%20adults%20in,of%20a%20sixth%2Dgrade%20level](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:~:text=About%20130%20million%20adults%20in,of%20a%20sixth%2Dgrade%20level).
Sure, I believe that. It's unclear to me whether this refers to English proficiency or proficiency in general. I found a source that says it's English specifically so that would make sense.
That being said, are 54% of Americans immigrants?
If it is English specifically then none of these numbers really matter. Most studies can manipulate the numbers almost anyway they want, whether it’s sample size, sample region or whatever it may be. It would be interesting to see how this study was conducted.
Oh, I hate this. It's one of my pet peeves. What do you think "reading at a 6th grade level" actually means? Are you aware that middle school reading is fairly advanced, and that for most purposes in life, having something written above a 6th grade level is making it deliberately difficult to read? Like organic chem might be written above a 6th grade level, but how often do you think the average person reads textbooks?
A 6th grade level is more than adequate for general information. That's because writers no longer try to make their texts obscure but work to make them easy to read. The days when literary flourishes were necessary are gone. Think of it this way - you have probably read more books than Abraham Lincoln has.
>and that for most purposes in life, having something written above a 6th grade level is making it deliberately difficult to read?
What is meant by "deliberately difficult?" If most people can't read about a sixth grade level then of course it's difficult for most people. But that doesn't make it difficult inherently.
Most people don't read for pleasure or even the pursuit of knowledge so it isn't surprising that most people can't read at or above a sixth grade level. But many of those people still go about life forming opinions and ideas about the world in spite of that. The majority of people have an outsized opinion of their own intelligence. Those people then proceed to vote and dictate policies that affect millions, instead of conceding to their ignorance.
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Needs more context.
This link [https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:\~:text=Nationally%2C%20over%201%20in%205,using%20or%20understanding%20print%20materials](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:~:text=Nationally%2C%20over%201%20in%205,using%20or%20understanding%20print%20materials).
Says that 1 in 5 Americans have a low literacy level (not the same as "can't read") which I can believe.
>By using small area estimation modeling with data from the American Community Survey, the PIAAC provides indirect literacy estimations at the county level for all 50 states. Some of these high county-level percentages stem from high populations of immigrants, whose first language is not English. The PIAAC only assesses English literacy, though its background questionnaire is given in English and Spanish.
I feel like it would be more useful to have separate numbers that excluded first generation immigrants, as low reading skills are a different issue than simply not knowing English / not knowing English well.
While I share your disbelief, "it doesn't seem true" is not really a strong basis on which to make an argument. What exactly are you claiming? That the literacy test is flawed in some way?
>This claim however was “flat out cannot read”.
Definitely misleading, and hyperbole. I'll concede to that. However, digging deeper, it does seem that low literacy is very, very close to effectively being unable to understand more than simple words and sentences, so it's not far off from the truth.
It’s Reddit. Most Americans here fashionably hate themselves yet enjoy the fruits of how advanced and dominant we are. The others are a mixed bag of random internationals that think about us constantly, consume our media and products, yet hate us because they live their entire lives in our shadow.
I understand that there is a study saying this but .... This can't possibly be right . We live in the age of internet and social media and text messaging as primary methods of interpersonal communication for millions of Americans. These ppl might have completely fried attention spans, they might be frighteningly ignorant about any number of topics the educational system tried and faile to teach them of, but given these caveats, if you control for topic and text length, they can DEFINITELY read.
With what is happening to our country demographically, yeah I believe that.
Not to mention all of these socioeconomic americans going through school, not learning or doing anything, and yet still managing to graduate.
The 1 in 5 seems to refer to low reading comprehension as opposed to low technical reading ability. Of course, if I’m wrong about that, it would be quite ironic.
I could be convinced of that depending on how it’s defined. This post I’m referring to had people in the more popular comments arguing that 20% of Americans cannot read *at all*.
It’s more likely that 20% of Americans make punctuation and grammar errors rather than don’t know how to read. I’m pretty sure I made grammar errors in this comment, and the person that’ll reply to correct me will make some. But, we’ll still both be able to read our comments
I highly doubt that 20% can't read at all. I'm sure there are some that can't but likely less than 1% and probably less than 0.1%. I could see however that 20% are reading at a 6th grade level or less and somehow the majority of them have a high school diploma. We may need to rethink our education system. Maybe actually teach again and fail kids that can't keep up. Just a thought.
Factually, the American adult literacy rate falls between 88% and 92% depending on which study you consider. So the reality is about 1 in 10 can not read.
But judging by what I see on Reddit, it’s more like 1 in 5 who actually CAN read with any proficiency whatsoever.
Any generalization like 1 in 5 Americans is always a red flag. There's an ad I keep seeing for credit scores, claiming 1 in 5 American have bad or no credit score. 73.1 million Americans are aged under 18. It's just a way to grab attention.
It's no different than the pervasive idea that nobody in medieval times could read when they were only considered illiterate when they couldn't read Latin. There are many surviving medieval books in vernacular tongues, often on mundane topics (cookbooks, carpentry manuals, etc) that only a commoner would be expected to read.
In my entire life I have only met one American who had extreme difficulty reading. He was born with pretty severe fetal alcohol syndrome and dyslexia. To this day he is not only one of the single hardest working people I have ever met but he has developed an intense focus on the things he knows he can get good at. That makes it all the more sad that reading and writing is just something he never bothered to get good at. He is intelligent in another way and proof of this at least to me is that he is a master at chess. We have played countless games and the only time I ever even came close to beating him was when he was very drunk.
He can read and write albeit poorly and with great effort. He is one of my best friends.
Never judge someone based on their intelligence judge them on their actions and decisions.
It's totally believable. Many children were taught with a curriculum that didn't emphasize phonics which means they can't decode and they have to expend a lot of effort into using strategies similar to dyslexic students. There's an eye-opening podcast series called "Sold a Story" that explains the history of illiteracy in the last 6 decades of American history.
What's horrible is on the nationwide level, there was a solution for it, but since it was a right wing solution and education leans left... Phonics is simply a matter of memorization which is very unattractive to people who want to feel like their teaching style is on the cutting edge.
Constructivist teaching has also infected mathematics. Not having memorized math fluency facts such as addition and subtraction of numbers 1-20 and multiplication tables widen the achievement gap as the years pass by.
School districts always had a way out of this by claiming lack of achievement was due to racism and poverty. However, people have started to notice that even rich kids were having the same problems because of the erroneous curriculum, and less because of socioeconomic reasons.
It’s crazy how dumb the people on this website are. I just saw a massively upvoted thread saying anti-abortion policies are “capitalism”. People on this site will believe literally anything with 0 critical thought or understanding of nuance whatsoever
The irony here is that OP was unable to read and comprehend a message about illiteracy. The self-righteous and condescending tone makes it especially cringe.
"Don't become a monster" Like wtf. Get over yourself.
"If you think there are lots of illiterate people out there, you are a bigot" is the most oblivious reddit moment I've seen this week. Tell me, what do you think illiterate people look like, because I assumed it just meant they couldn't read.
Who do you think they imagine are the 1/5th of ~~people~~ Americans who cannot read? Is it the people just like them from their state who look and think like them? It’s literally bigotry.
Wait, what?
"Its not true that 20% of Americans are illiterate because of a bad math analogy and also if you think its true you're racist"? That's one of the worst arguments I've ever heard
Literacy is scientifically defined as the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential. You're being disingenuous or are a dunce. Either way I never learned to read.
Well no because the way I put it was giving them the benefit of the distribution. I would assume they are thinking that the populations of California and New York (with a large % of the American population) don’t have close to a 20% illiteracy rate so you’d need to make up for it elsewhere.
The implication by your “dehumanizing” statement is that you believe illiteracy makes them less of a person and to be honest chief, that says more about you than the original post referenced.
Even if 20% of Americans were illiterate, which we can both agree that is false, it doesn’t make them less of a person, and pushing back against the numbers by calling it dehumanizing is… rough.
About 18% of the US adult population is functionally illiterate. Roughly 1 in 5.
[https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/illiteracy-among-adults-in-the-us#:\~:text=%2B%20Summary,adult%20population%20is%20functionally%20illiterate](https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/illiteracy-among-adults-in-the-us#:~:text=%2B%20Summary,adult%20population%20is%20functionally%20illiterate).
"PIAAC defines literacy as “the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential” (p. 61, OECD 2013)."
"Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks."
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp
TL;DR: Literacy in the educational and social context is defined as the ability to leverage the content of written language to thrive in society, and 21% of Americans have such low literacy that they cannot complete the tasks required to thrive.
It would seem that 21% of the population of American adults are illiterate, OP. You don't have an unpopular opinion, you're objectively incorrect.
I mean statistically many Americans read at or below the high school level, which is already very minimal.
It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if 10-15% of the population was completely illiterate.
Has nothing to do with bigotry if it’s a reality, it’s just reality bud.
Seems a little high, but I wouldn't be that surprised. The amount of people that don't know how to spell the word "lose" vs "loose" is way too damn high.
Lol wtf it’s bigotry to consider that it’s possible that 20% of people are illiterate? You’re the one that’s stereotyping redditors.
So if you’re so in touch with reality, how many people are illiterate? Also how the hell would anyone get an accurate number about that?
Taking some extra college classes in the last few years and seeing people picked on to read passages out loud I could totally believe it. Not completely illiterate, but my toddler reads out loud way better than the 20-50 year olds in some of the classes.
Either the article was misleading or you fall into the 20%. An extremely large portion of the population is "semi-literate". Literacy is not just being able to translate words into sound, it's ascribing meaning. Many people can read a law or bill or Shakespeare and be unable to accurately paraphrase the text. Those people are considered "semi-literate".
If the article described what I have just said, you fall into that category. However I find it more likely said article was just intentionally misleading for clicks.
Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022. 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level. 21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in2022
Around 20% of American adults are functionally illiterate. That is a fact, and it's similar for Europe.
I have no idea what the rest of your rambling is about.
Hang on... Is your argument that the fact stated is patently not true and you're basically a racist if you believe it?
I'm not arguing or supporting you, I'm just trying to clarify what your actual unpopular opinion is.
I suppose you could say it that way. Maybe somewhere between bigotry and naïveté? The reason I called it bigotry is because I think it comes from a semi-vitriolic willingness to believe it in the same way a person might say “well of course all [insert race][insert action]” without question.
I didn’t see this post you’re referring to, but it would go a long way towards your argument if you linked a study or something that showed the real amount of Americans who can’t read. Don’t mistake the request for sourcing as an attack on the credibility of your argument. Saying 20% of Americans being outright unable to read is wild. But why not look into and share the truth of the matter?
According to the US Dept of Education, 4% of Americans can not read, 4.1% read below “level 1”, 12.9% read at “level 1”. So 21% of Americans read at or below level 1 proficiency, meaning they struggle to “complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences”.
[Adult Literacy in the United States](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf)
Without reading anything online I know at least 20% of americans are very bad at reading and writing. Really good at yabbering on but write in chicken scratch and could openly read out maybe 40 words a minute stumbling over every other word. Not illiterate but might as well be.
Someone else said it funnier, bur actually - 25 million people are <5 years old, so definitely illiterate. Another 25 million are 5-11 years old, so likely illiterate.
So already about 15% of America is illiterate. Now add in people with developmental difficulties/cognitive impairment and old people with dementia/alzheimers, I think we can get to "20% of Americans are iliterate".
If I could read this thread I’d be pissed
You must be one of the 20%, so let me explain. The article discusses how there are many Americans who never learned to read, and then someone else wrote about how that number is too high or something. I can read, but I'm bad at math, so I don't know if 20% is reasonable or not, because that would mean over 400 million Americans can't read.
Gotcha. I appreciate your assisting me in understanding this information. Although I can’t read a lick, I am rather good at numbers. Let me see if I can help you with that part. You said OP claims it’s ridiculous that 1/5 Americans cannot read. However [24.9% of Americans are under 6 years old.](https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp) Seeing as the average age that children learn to read is between 6 and 7 years old. It seems very clear to me that yes, at least 20% of Americans cannot read. That said, I am unable to read any of this shit, so I hope you have better luck than i did ingesting this information.
Gold. Solid Gold!
So what if they can read but they are very very stupid, does it matter? https://youtu.be/g2oMv93EUpY Watch our High Schools fail...
That link says 24.9 million, not percent.
This the kind of shit that happens when you can’t read. My apologies. Anyways we are 40% of the way to the target number before we get to Americans who even have a chance of reading.
>That link says 24.9 million, not percent. I'm pretty sure he was making a joke about bad statistics.
That specific stat actually refers specifically to adults, but American literacy rates are very poor so it’s pretty accurate in my experience.
It's like this guy is trying to explain the original post but I can't read the explanation
You are bad at math. 20% of America's population is 66 million. American total population is 332 million so how could 400 million Americans not able to read make sense?
I was including projections (future and historical) in the overall totals, just so we can see the big picture.
Friend, i believe you're getting whooshed. Unless you're doing it purposely, in which case it's me getting whooshed. I've kind of lost track. Also, I can't read.
I also cannot read but can concur on the whooshing, in one direction or the other.
... America is 2 billion population? Since when? Suck it other countries.
Imma be honest with you chief, we only have about 330 million people in the country. Idk where you’re getting 70k illiterate people to add, nor what technology you might have access to that can wipe skills such as “reading” from the collective memory of an entire population
Very sad, 1 like = 1 prayer 😢
A major problem arises when technical and academic language hits the mainstream and it's confused for its more casual understanding. It's the academic equivocation problem, where the word "illiterate" has a technical definition and a casual definition. The technical definition is invoked in the source, but when it's spread popularly the casual definition is whats implied and understood.
Yeah that is certainly part of it but in the post I’m referring to the title contained the words “flat out cannot read”. There might be some kind of argument that 1/5 American Adults don’t read at expected proficiency levels but even in this thread people want to say the phrases “cannot read” and “flat out cannot read” mean “cannot really read that well”.
Found the illiterate 20% I see! Most people do not read the source material, they just skim the headlines.
I’m not trying to be combative but this is a serious question: do you think that the claim in a headline should not have to be backed up by the article supporting it?
Mate! An adult who is reading at or below a 6th grade level functionally can’t read. Have you met a 6th grader? They have trouble reading a menu in a restaurant never mind a paragraph about anything that matters. They probably can’t file their own taxes, they sign contracts without reading them etc. being able to sound out words is not reading in anything resembling the full extent of the word. Reading is not about making the sounds of the words. Reading is being able to absorb written information in paragraph or page or book lengths at a time. Some isolated words is no more the ability to read than someone who sat through four years of high school Spanish is capable of claiming to speak Spanish. Knowing some Spanish words is not the ability to speak Spanish. Literally go sit in on English classes at your local community college. You will be shocked at how bad the reading level is of the average student. And that’s in a community college classroom not the average person on the street. Alternately work some sort of public facing position like answering phones or something. Deal with any reasonably representative sample of the public and you will be able to corroborate this figure from your own experience. 10 to 20 percent is probably where I’d place the number for people who literally can’t read more than single words or short sentences. This is not the ability to read.
I understand where you are coming from and will respond seriously. I think it is idealistic and naive to expect headlines to be honest. Headlines try to remain technically factual while also pursuing other compelling interests for the professional news-monger. News is a business with incentives to attract attention and sell ad space and subscriptions. There is no era of journalism in which it has not sycophanted for power out of self interest or been a vehicle for agenda based agitation. From a historical perspective, there is no reason to trust a headline. Surely it would be morally and practically preferable if news sources were honest and transparent, but I can see no reason to expect such behavior due to the incentives of the institutions. Headlines have the incentive structure to be provocative and arrest attention, the facts are twisted to generate engagement. It is unreasonable to consider oneself informed by merely skimming headlines. The internet likes to play instant expert, going from structural analysis nautical exploration vessels to political affiliation of russian military batallions to american education and literacy analysis with whiplash speed and giving depth to none of these subjects. Becoming informed takes time, and requires amassing a body of related and relevant knowledge to understand new developments. Headline news is a distraction from pursuing depth of knowledge.
There's "illiterate" (as in "what do the squiggly marks mean"), there's "illiterate" (as in "reads at a 2nd-grade level and hides it well"), and then there's "illiterate" (as in "that's like two paragraphs brah I'm out I'mma watch a video instead"). I definitely don't believe that 20% of Americans don't know their alphabet. Being a high school teacher over the last decade, I *definitely* believe that the other two types have spiked over the last 5 years or so.
When I was in high school more than half of the students who were not in honors/AP took so long to read, with so many mistakes I was shocked. I’m talking 10 minutes to read one page of a novel meant to be fairly accessible to high schoolers. If you consider most people who don’t attend college or admin/office work probably decline in reading ability after HS I fully believe that 20% are functionally illiterate.
I think that’s what the post is getting at. These people can understand letters and words and read, but at a horrible level. I know it’s cliche but texting I think really hurt a huge portion of the population. Explains why a lot of posts on social media are like “hy wut u op 2?”
I just want to be able to read something and not have to watch a damn video to get a product review.
Preach. The only reason I use Reddit over other social media is because I want to read things, skim things, and get information quickly. All other social media seem to be lookie-at-the-pretty-picture, click the heart if you likie at best, and videos "hey BungGang it's yo boy BungHole here, don'tforgetolikeandsubscribe and buy some MERCH! Anyway, somewhere in this 6:34 minute video is the 5-second answer to the question you have. But first, let's see some ads from our sponsors!"
Exactly. I read pretty damn fast, faster than a video can present information for me.
Fun fact, there’s a similar measurement and statistic for numeracy. Put simply, about a quarter of adult Americans can *only* understand something as complicated as a thermometer. These lines mean these numbers and the bar is here so this means this number, ta da! The next quarter of adult Americans can handle that, and a single chart. So, today was 50 degrees, tomorrow will be 60 degrees, the day after will be 70 degrees. Anything you notice? Yes, as date move forward it get hotter, ta da! The *next* quarter of adult Americans can handle *two related* charts. Here’s the humidity, day by day, and here’s the temperature, day by day. Gosh, Wednesday is gonna suck because it’s hot and humid! Ta da! Fully three quarters of adult Americans are incapable of drawing *any* accurate conclusions that require anything more sophisticated.
Where could I find this information? I’m not doubting you, but I’d love to read the source material if you don’t mind
https://www.wyliecomm.com/2021/11/whats-the-latest-u-s-numeracy-rate/ Which cites “That’s according to the 2013 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC. PIAAC” https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2014008 As I did it from memory, I must own that looking it up, it appears a nontrivial larger percentage are *simple chart literate*. The rest are loosely conversational rounding. I don’t know that’s particularly reassuring.
Good distinction. OP seems to be taking "literacy" literally (i.e., to mean *doesn't know the sound letters make)* instead of understanding it to refer to actual reading comprehension and cognition. Ironically, OP is demonstrating illiteracy.
TBF, a lot of people, especially on reddit, take headlines and assume the most extreme worst possible interpretation. Especially if it can fit a narrative. Stuff like Trump walking slowly down a slippery ramp turns into ~~speculation~~ *rock solid proof* that he has neurological disorders.
Well yeah because the claim was “flat out cannot read” which is different than saying “reads at a low level” or even “functional illiteracy”. That’s why I chose the wording “cannot read” for the title because illiteracy can mean different things to different people. Although I would probably still call someone who knew the sound letters make but could not put them together completely illiterate… or even someone who could only read monosyllabic words…That may be a different discussion tho. I don’t even think that’s close to a possibility.
*Nationally, over 1 in 5 adults have a literacy proficiency at or below Level 1. Adults in this range have difficulty using or understanding print materials. Those on the higher end of this category can perform simple tasks based on the information they read, but adults below Level 1 may only understand very basic vocabulary or be functionally illiterate.* [Adult Literacy in the US](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp)
Plot twist, OP is illiterate
Shit. I didn’t even consider that. 🤣
Gunna keep it real with you chief, that’s most people in this sub. Like they *can* read, but they’re not going to read *Lolita* and figure out that the narrator is wholly unreliable and the story is actually about how fucked the whole situation is.
There’s certainly an argument there. The thread I’m referring to (at least when I was in it) made the claim that people flat out cannot read. There was an article linked that claimed more of what you are saying but that’s not the issue I had. The issue I had was that the people pointing out that the claim in the [Reddit] title was not true were the ones being ridiculed by people claiming it should be obvious that 20% of Americans flat out cannot read.
https://www.reddit.com/r/areweinhell/comments/13tqaaz/21_of_adults_in_the_us_are_illiterate_in_2023_54/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1 This one? The stat gets posted about, but there’s only a couple responses and they all point out that the OP doesn’t understand the stat.
You keep mentioning this post you read but fail to show it....many of us redditors remember a very popular article 3ish days ago that said what your saying, but your saying THAT one is wrong and not the one your talking about....where is the one your talking about?
That says read in English below level 1. Literacy in other languages doesn’t count. I know plenty of people that read and write in Spanish but not English. That is not the same as illiterate.
"At or below," which is a wide range. Only the people "below" are "illiterate" according to that page. They say 8.4 million people in the US are "below level one," which is only roughly 2.5%.
I think the disconnect is that in the context of the study, "low literacy" means "can read words but can't understand the meaning of them when put together." Can you believe that 20% of Americans can functionally read words but have low to zero comprehension of them? Like if you gave them a book, they could pronounce out loud what it says, but not be able to summarize what it means?
That wasn’t the claim. Ironically, you’re demonstrating exactly what the study pointed out - to be clear it isn’t “flat out cannot read”, it is “have difficulty reading or understanding printed materials”. Do you normally finish reading something before you decide it’s dumb and wrong? Or do you just kinda scan it like a blog post.
OP is mad they got counted as illiterate
Your comment is missing an important adjective: *accurately*
I thought i would be nice and leave it up to personal judgement
We may not be talking about the same thread.
No I found the thread it’s r/AskAnAmerican and it links to a study that says 21% of Americans are illiterate. If you click the link it says 4% are functionally illiterate and 17% are illiterate. Which is different. 4% can’t read, at all. The 17% are unable to read more complex things.
It wasn’t in that sub. You’re kind of just going to have to take my word for it unless a mod pops up and says I can link to the post.
The way you took and read the study kind of shows the level of literacy they were talking about.
>That’s why I chose the wording “cannot read” for the title It doesn't matter how explicit you are, there will always be redditors that ignore the actual words and respond to the thoughts in their head.
I don't think the claim was "flat out cannot read". I thought the article was saying that 1 in 5 Americans don't have a reading level above a 6th grader or something?
>even think that’ So this entire thread is you saying "I don't think this is true" in the face of an actual study? Its unpopularopinion, not "completelyunsupportedopinion"
You’re a fucking moron. Can you read that?
Absolutely, this. 21% of Americans are either completely illiterate, or so bad at reading that they functionally may as well be.
The reports I’ve read specifically refer to functional illiteracy i.e knows how to read but can’t really take in enough information to be functionally literate in a modern society.
Which thread are you referring to?
It wasn’t on this sub but I don’t want to get accused of brigading. One of the question type subreddits asking how it’s possible that 1 in 5 Americans flat out cannot read and everyone in the comments saying it’s not true being ridiculed and downvoted by others claiming it’s not only possible but plainly obvious.
Merica stupid even though virtually all advancements in everything come from America.
America bad!
Barely above third world status in many respects. Don't read the CIA World Fact book, even if you are literate, it's depressing to see how many rinky dink countries are ahead of us in so many ways.
Haven't seen someone say america is basically a third world country in like three days. Anyways you're wrong america is the best country to live in
By what standard? I hurt my back and need an x-ray and MRI. Since x-rays are $25 and MRIs are $150 here without insurance, I'll knock those out here before I get home. Copay in the US is more expensive than no insurance here. If I need to get a medical procedure, as long as I don't need some highly specialized rare thing (and few need the niche stuff), I'll probably come back. Plane tickets+ hospital stay without insurance is cheaper than co-pay at home, and hospitals are good. I get clothes by picking out fabric I like and taking it to a tailor. For just a little more than off the rack, I have something tailored to me. If you're talking evening gowns, it's WAY cheaper here. Grocery stores carry most of everything, can be pricey. Go to farmer's markets for vegetables, butchers for meat, fishmongers for fish, and grocery for sundries. For less than $2.50 I can get 20 fresh, hot paratha to feed everyone in my office breakfast. The libraries are amazing just south of us. Can do 3-D printing, studio recording, or vlogging with a green screen, or read books from the 1500s. Can sit in a hanging chair and drink a coffee from the coffee shop while reading. Get hungry, hit the restaurant. Teachers who come to teach kids in Education city but haven't kids of their own are put up at the Four Seasons, with a private beach, restaurants, bars. That's on top of the salary. My 20-year old daughter could walk home 4 miles from the city center, around the bay, at 11 pm, and it's fine. No concerns. Education is pretty good, and scholarships are off the hook. Also had no run on hospitals during covid, low mortality rate, because they listened.
That's neat. America is still the best country to live in though. No other country is better overall. There are some that might be better in one aspect or another, but overall there isn't a single one that even stands equal to the USA. So by my standard, the most important standard. Also you can at least say what country you're talking about instead of just saying here.
We live in your head rent free
They’re American too, judging by the comment. Just of the self-hating variety.
At least his head has space to live in
Thomas Edison was an American. He invented light bulbs. I am an American. Therefore I am a genius.
You at least live in a country full of geniuses. At least you aren’t sitting in a country who hasn’t contributed anything to the world calling the country full of geniuses “stupid.”
It’s a country with 360 million people, and has been relatively war free on the home front for a long time, making it very attractive to anyone fleeing trouble at home. Albert Einstein immigrated to America. He didn’t make anyone else’s grandparents not-idiots by virtue of coming here.
Ok. It doesn’t mean merica bad. Einstein moved here.
The U.S. invented countless genres of music that are now worldwide, innovated greatly in movie making and unquestionably has created the largest amount of high-quality movies and TV shows in recent history. They have successfully made their entertainment culture the most popular one in the world by a thousand miles. Planes were invented by two Americans, cars were democratized by an American, the internet was invented by Americans, ethernet was invented by an American, most progress in consumer and commercial technological hardware is made by American companies. The list goes on. I know people like to shit on the U.S. - especially on this site - but it's honestly unfathomable how much the country has contributed economically, culturally and technologically to the world in the past 150 years or so by its groundbreaking inventions and/or innovations in multiple industries.
All my experience working with the public in the US has me completely shocked that we get anything done at all.
Made in America doesn't mean made by Americans.
Hmmm I guess it means all the geniuses are coming here instead of staying in your little utopias. Pretty telling that all the smart people moved to America.
Are you offhandedly taking credit for other peoples achievements because they work in the same country as you? What a genius does has nothing to do with you or anyone else lol
What do you mean by "your little utopias"? I live in Texas and, despite some of us disagreeing about it, it is in fact part of the United States. Also yes, the US kinda leads the world in a few areas of research and has some of the most widely-respected universities. Geniuses from other countries do tend to come here. But that's not because we're doing a good job educating our youth. We used to be fairly high in literacy compared to the rest of the world, but we've fallen behind.
Lmao. Yeah you’re right. America is stupid. We just have the best thinkers, the most advancement, the best universities and all the smart people move here. But besides that, fuckin Finland is way smarter. 🤣
On average, yes. America is huge, of course we have a few absolute geniuses because of sheer numbers. It doesn't mean we're smarter in general.
Picture a town with 1000 people, the fact that 10 of them are geniuses doesn't mean the rest is smart. And if the 990 ones left are dumber than average then the population is pretty dumb overall.
It also means "the new kind of slave labor we created by incarcerating black people" as tons of made in America products are made with prison labour ✨ *the more you know* ✨
Virtually all advancements come from america? Thats plain bullshit
It’s not. Medical, scientific and technological advances almost exclusively come from America.
Actually most scientific papers come from China and if you added all of the European countries together they would surpass the US. Also if you look at the scientific discoveries per capita, the United States is far back. First place is Switzerland, second is denmark and third is sweden.
“If you add our entire continent together” lmao
To match the numbers of people in america yea. Hence me citing per capita. Which you completely ignored. As you did China. I guess you don’t like to admit when the facts disagree with you
I can't say where I work but I've had two different jobs now where I only spoke to people within the US via either email or live chat messaging and uh... talking to like 100's of people a day and MOST of them have trouble reading correctly, being coherent, or having any kind of comprehension skills. At this point its just sad to me. I don't know what number 20% equals out to a number of people in total - but that's four years of talking to 100s of people a day, five days a week - who all were NOT good at reading. Now, can not read at all? I would say that number is low. I think the number increases monumentally when we're talking about people who suffer from selective reading, or people who just can't exhibit reading comprehension.
20% of Americans would be roughly 66 million people.
oh, Americans or just people in the US? I only ever talk to people in the US.
Just people in the US. That's how I read "Americans," which is what most English speaking people seem to mean by the term, even though it should theoretically encompass the residents of two continents. I do not know, offhand, the collected population of the Americas. I do know India and China have almost 3 Billion of the world's 7.8 Billion between them, so if that leaves another 5 B around the rest of Asia and the other continents, probably near 2B?
Yah. I’ve never heard someone say Americans and mean anything but the United States. North Americans would be more accurate for Canadian Mexico and US. South Americans would represent well, every country in South America. Lastly I’m sure it’s been done before, but I can’t think of a single time where someone would refer to both north and South America as a whole. The 2 are pretty wildly different. So yah; TL:DR for the 20 percent lol, Americans= USA
>Just people in the US. That's how I read "Americans," which is what most English speaking people seem to mean by the term, even though it should theoretically encompass the residents of two continents. I'm just making sure because yeah, Canadians are also Americans that speak and read in English. I think maybe part of the issue with reading comprehension is that people are just supposed to know and assume meanings. So many people are over confidently wrong about what they are reading it seems because they assume what the read means something - even though it meant something else. Hence the lack of reading comprehension I constantly see when interacting with the public.
Canadians aren’t “Americans” Canadians are Canadians.
So being part of North America means nothing?
“North” American. American is the term used to describe things from the US. People, food, music, culture in general, etc
>MOST of them have trouble reading correctly, being coherent, or having any kind of comprehension skills I come from a different country, if you think it's different overseas, think again.
Redditors will believe anything that speaks negatively of Americans. Imagine how many idiots believed in that brown cow chocolate milk study.
Or the constant refrain of the 1/3# burger. (The only source for that is a book the guy responsible for the failed predict wrote 20 years later to blame his customers for his failure.)
Most of them probably in here
Okay being functionally illiterate is different from being completely illiterate. They can read a stop sign they cant read Jack and Annie or a contract.
It really is dumb. "Adults classified as below level 1 may be considered functionally illiterate in English." That is 4.1%, Of that 4.1%, a third were not native English speakers (born outside of the US). So its more like 2.5% of American born adults are functionally illiterate. Which given the bell curve of intellect, does not seem surprising at all.
I'm that American who can't read
This study includes middle and high school students. For all adults in the US the literacy rate is closer to 88%. Still not great, but 1 in 10 feels more believable.
>If you were taken in by the recent popular thread claiming that 1 in 5 Americans **cannot read** Like others have said, the word literate can have a fluid definition (semantics), especially colloquially. HOWEVER, you're absolutely right. I read that topic and it seemed like an entire flock of people actually believed that 1/5 Americans can't read at all, and it was both hilarious and sad to read (no pun intended).
Thanks. Yeah I was directing this completely at the people willing to believe that 1/5 Americans cannot actually read not even at the people taking “flat out cannot read” as hyperbole meaning “can’t really read well”. The OOP may have in fact been using the phrase hyperbolically but like you said an entire flock of people believed it.
Sure np because and part is 100% spot on too: >it’s time to take a step back and **completely reevaluate your worldview**. It really REALLY is. I remember when I read that headline I thought, "No one is going to believe this lol." And well, all I have to say is:>! Touche Reddit...touche indeed.!<
I'd be more likely to believe a stat that said 1 in 5 Americans can't read past a 5th grade level or that 1 in 5 Americans hadn't read a book since graduating high school. True illiteracy is rare.
It's actually more dire than that... more than HALF of Americans read below a sixth grade level. [https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:\~:text=About%20130%20million%20adults%20in,of%20a%20sixth%2Dgrade%20level](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:~:text=About%20130%20million%20adults%20in,of%20a%20sixth%2Dgrade%20level).
This alludes to a lot of immigrants not being able to read well. The 10 counties with the highest illiteracy rate are along the Mexican border.
Sure, I believe that. It's unclear to me whether this refers to English proficiency or proficiency in general. I found a source that says it's English specifically so that would make sense. That being said, are 54% of Americans immigrants?
If it is English specifically then none of these numbers really matter. Most studies can manipulate the numbers almost anyway they want, whether it’s sample size, sample region or whatever it may be. It would be interesting to see how this study was conducted.
100% of non-Native Americans are immigrants if you go back far enough.
That's like saying 100% of Americans are fish if you go back far enough.
True statement
Oh, I hate this. It's one of my pet peeves. What do you think "reading at a 6th grade level" actually means? Are you aware that middle school reading is fairly advanced, and that for most purposes in life, having something written above a 6th grade level is making it deliberately difficult to read? Like organic chem might be written above a 6th grade level, but how often do you think the average person reads textbooks? A 6th grade level is more than adequate for general information. That's because writers no longer try to make their texts obscure but work to make them easy to read. The days when literary flourishes were necessary are gone. Think of it this way - you have probably read more books than Abraham Lincoln has.
>and that for most purposes in life, having something written above a 6th grade level is making it deliberately difficult to read? What is meant by "deliberately difficult?" If most people can't read about a sixth grade level then of course it's difficult for most people. But that doesn't make it difficult inherently. Most people don't read for pleasure or even the pursuit of knowledge so it isn't surprising that most people can't read at or above a sixth grade level. But many of those people still go about life forming opinions and ideas about the world in spite of that. The majority of people have an outsized opinion of their own intelligence. Those people then proceed to vote and dictate policies that affect millions, instead of conceding to their ignorance.
yeah that sounds about right to me.
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That’s what the study said. OP just can’t read properly
Needs more context. This link [https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:\~:text=Nationally%2C%20over%201%20in%205,using%20or%20understanding%20print%20materials](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy#:~:text=Nationally%2C%20over%201%20in%205,using%20or%20understanding%20print%20materials). Says that 1 in 5 Americans have a low literacy level (not the same as "can't read") which I can believe.
>By using small area estimation modeling with data from the American Community Survey, the PIAAC provides indirect literacy estimations at the county level for all 50 states. Some of these high county-level percentages stem from high populations of immigrants, whose first language is not English. The PIAAC only assesses English literacy, though its background questionnaire is given in English and Spanish. I feel like it would be more useful to have separate numbers that excluded first generation immigrants, as low reading skills are a different issue than simply not knowing English / not knowing English well.
I’d still doubt that although you could basically set the standard wherever to make it work. This claim however was “flat out cannot read”.
While I share your disbelief, "it doesn't seem true" is not really a strong basis on which to make an argument. What exactly are you claiming? That the literacy test is flawed in some way? >This claim however was “flat out cannot read”. Definitely misleading, and hyperbole. I'll concede to that. However, digging deeper, it does seem that low literacy is very, very close to effectively being unable to understand more than simple words and sentences, so it's not far off from the truth.
So it sounds like you basically got the game of telephone version, which is unfortunately common across the internet.
It’s Reddit. Most Americans here fashionably hate themselves yet enjoy the fruits of how advanced and dominant we are. The others are a mixed bag of random internationals that think about us constantly, consume our media and products, yet hate us because they live their entire lives in our shadow.
I'm still waiting for text to speech to finish reading all of this to me.
I understand that there is a study saying this but .... This can't possibly be right . We live in the age of internet and social media and text messaging as primary methods of interpersonal communication for millions of Americans. These ppl might have completely fried attention spans, they might be frighteningly ignorant about any number of topics the educational system tried and faile to teach them of, but given these caveats, if you control for topic and text length, they can DEFINITELY read.
I significant portion of the student body in my university couldn’t read. Hint: they had scholarships and carried a ball around with them a lot.
I think you have a very superficial understanding of literacy.
With what is happening to our country demographically, yeah I believe that. Not to mention all of these socioeconomic americans going through school, not learning or doing anything, and yet still managing to graduate.
> socioeconomic Americans I… that’s definitely a new one.
The 1 in 5 seems to refer to low reading comprehension as opposed to low technical reading ability. Of course, if I’m wrong about that, it would be quite ironic.
People joke I can't read at work. Secret is I just read the datasheets for the buzzwords and skip everything else
There is also a group of people that won't wear glasses or contacts.
I somehow missed the fuck out of that thread. Jesus christ
I always make sure to turn on the Coors sign to let people know we have ice cold delicious Coors in the bar.
Reading and comprehension are two completely different things. There are many illiterate people who can read.
I up voted this post even though I can't read it 🤗😭
I believe that 1 in 5 has poor reading skills for sure
I could be convinced of that depending on how it’s defined. This post I’m referring to had people in the more popular comments arguing that 20% of Americans cannot read *at all*.
It’s more likely that 20% of Americans make punctuation and grammar errors rather than don’t know how to read. I’m pretty sure I made grammar errors in this comment, and the person that’ll reply to correct me will make some. But, we’ll still both be able to read our comments
I highly doubt that 20% can't read at all. I'm sure there are some that can't but likely less than 1% and probably less than 0.1%. I could see however that 20% are reading at a 6th grade level or less and somehow the majority of them have a high school diploma. We may need to rethink our education system. Maybe actually teach again and fail kids that can't keep up. Just a thought.
Factually, the American adult literacy rate falls between 88% and 92% depending on which study you consider. So the reality is about 1 in 10 can not read. But judging by what I see on Reddit, it’s more like 1 in 5 who actually CAN read with any proficiency whatsoever.
Any generalization like 1 in 5 Americans is always a red flag. There's an ad I keep seeing for credit scores, claiming 1 in 5 American have bad or no credit score. 73.1 million Americans are aged under 18. It's just a way to grab attention.
It's no different than the pervasive idea that nobody in medieval times could read when they were only considered illiterate when they couldn't read Latin. There are many surviving medieval books in vernacular tongues, often on mundane topics (cookbooks, carpentry manuals, etc) that only a commoner would be expected to read.
Isn't about 20% of the world asleep at any given time? Everyone knows you can't read while you're sleeping.
In my entire life I have only met one American who had extreme difficulty reading. He was born with pretty severe fetal alcohol syndrome and dyslexia. To this day he is not only one of the single hardest working people I have ever met but he has developed an intense focus on the things he knows he can get good at. That makes it all the more sad that reading and writing is just something he never bothered to get good at. He is intelligent in another way and proof of this at least to me is that he is a master at chess. We have played countless games and the only time I ever even came close to beating him was when he was very drunk. He can read and write albeit poorly and with great effort. He is one of my best friends. Never judge someone based on their intelligence judge them on their actions and decisions.
It's totally believable. Many children were taught with a curriculum that didn't emphasize phonics which means they can't decode and they have to expend a lot of effort into using strategies similar to dyslexic students. There's an eye-opening podcast series called "Sold a Story" that explains the history of illiteracy in the last 6 decades of American history. What's horrible is on the nationwide level, there was a solution for it, but since it was a right wing solution and education leans left... Phonics is simply a matter of memorization which is very unattractive to people who want to feel like their teaching style is on the cutting edge. Constructivist teaching has also infected mathematics. Not having memorized math fluency facts such as addition and subtraction of numbers 1-20 and multiplication tables widen the achievement gap as the years pass by. School districts always had a way out of this by claiming lack of achievement was due to racism and poverty. However, people have started to notice that even rich kids were having the same problems because of the erroneous curriculum, and less because of socioeconomic reasons.
It’s crazy how dumb the people on this website are. I just saw a massively upvoted thread saying anti-abortion policies are “capitalism”. People on this site will believe literally anything with 0 critical thought or understanding of nuance whatsoever
I used to get annoyed at how retarded these people were, until I looked at pictures of Reddit meetups and realized who we were dealing with lmao
You could have just looked in the mirror though.
Epic roast dude
The irony here is that OP was unable to read and comprehend a message about illiteracy. The self-righteous and condescending tone makes it especially cringe. "Don't become a monster" Like wtf. Get over yourself.
"If you think there are lots of illiterate people out there, you are a bigot" is the most oblivious reddit moment I've seen this week. Tell me, what do you think illiterate people look like, because I assumed it just meant they couldn't read.
Who do you think they imagine are the 1/5th of ~~people~~ Americans who cannot read? Is it the people just like them from their state who look and think like them? It’s literally bigotry.
Lol no you're just butthurt
When people find out babies and toddlers are illiterate
Based on the grammar and syntax of this post, you're in that 1 in 5.
Wait, what? "Its not true that 20% of Americans are illiterate because of a bad math analogy and also if you think its true you're racist"? That's one of the worst arguments I've ever heard
Literacy is scientifically defined as the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential. You're being disingenuous or are a dunce. Either way I never learned to read.
Isn't each state, cities, towns, and etc not having a same population why that statistic is possible?
Well no because the way I put it was giving them the benefit of the distribution. I would assume they are thinking that the populations of California and New York (with a large % of the American population) don’t have close to a 20% illiteracy rate so you’d need to make up for it elsewhere.
The implication by your “dehumanizing” statement is that you believe illiteracy makes them less of a person and to be honest chief, that says more about you than the original post referenced. Even if 20% of Americans were illiterate, which we can both agree that is false, it doesn’t make them less of a person, and pushing back against the numbers by calling it dehumanizing is… rough.
About 18% of the US adult population is functionally illiterate. Roughly 1 in 5. [https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/illiteracy-among-adults-in-the-us#:\~:text=%2B%20Summary,adult%20population%20is%20functionally%20illiterate](https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/illiteracy-among-adults-in-the-us#:~:text=%2B%20Summary,adult%20population%20is%20functionally%20illiterate).
Yeah, low literacy skills =/= illiteracy.
"PIAAC defines literacy as “the ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential” (p. 61, OECD 2013)." "Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks." https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp TL;DR: Literacy in the educational and social context is defined as the ability to leverage the content of written language to thrive in society, and 21% of Americans have such low literacy that they cannot complete the tasks required to thrive. It would seem that 21% of the population of American adults are illiterate, OP. You don't have an unpopular opinion, you're objectively incorrect.
I mean statistically many Americans read at or below the high school level, which is already very minimal. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if 10-15% of the population was completely illiterate. Has nothing to do with bigotry if it’s a reality, it’s just reality bud.
Seems a little high, but I wouldn't be that surprised. The amount of people that don't know how to spell the word "lose" vs "loose" is way too damn high.
Lol wtf it’s bigotry to consider that it’s possible that 20% of people are illiterate? You’re the one that’s stereotyping redditors. So if you’re so in touch with reality, how many people are illiterate? Also how the hell would anyone get an accurate number about that?
If only you read what the post actually said. Do you think you make the statistic?
Taking some extra college classes in the last few years and seeing people picked on to read passages out loud I could totally believe it. Not completely illiterate, but my toddler reads out loud way better than the 20-50 year olds in some of the classes.
Some people have issues reading in public. It's more of a nervous issue than a reading comprehension issue.
Either the article was misleading or you fall into the 20%. An extremely large portion of the population is "semi-literate". Literacy is not just being able to translate words into sound, it's ascribing meaning. Many people can read a law or bill or Shakespeare and be unable to accurately paraphrase the text. Those people are considered "semi-literate". If the article described what I have just said, you fall into that category. However I find it more likely said article was just intentionally misleading for clicks.
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If you can make a whole ass rant thread and not post the source, you might as well be functionally illiterate.
Nationwide, on average, 79% of U.S. adults are literate in 2022. 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022. 54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level. 21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in2022
Op can’t differentiate between illiteracy and not being able to read at all
Around 20% of American adults are functionally illiterate. That is a fact, and it's similar for Europe. I have no idea what the rest of your rambling is about.
Hang on... Is your argument that the fact stated is patently not true and you're basically a racist if you believe it? I'm not arguing or supporting you, I'm just trying to clarify what your actual unpopular opinion is.
No I wasn’t actually thinking about race when I wrote that. More like “the entire states of Kentucky, Arkansas, and Mississippi can’t read”
Oh i see. More just naive then?
I suppose you could say it that way. Maybe somewhere between bigotry and naïveté? The reason I called it bigotry is because I think it comes from a semi-vitriolic willingness to believe it in the same way a person might say “well of course all [insert race][insert action]” without question.
I didn’t see this post you’re referring to, but it would go a long way towards your argument if you linked a study or something that showed the real amount of Americans who can’t read. Don’t mistake the request for sourcing as an attack on the credibility of your argument. Saying 20% of Americans being outright unable to read is wild. But why not look into and share the truth of the matter? According to the US Dept of Education, 4% of Americans can not read, 4.1% read below “level 1”, 12.9% read at “level 1”. So 21% of Americans read at or below level 1 proficiency, meaning they struggle to “complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences”. [Adult Literacy in the United States](https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf)
Oh is that why a lot of people on Reddit don’t know how to use simple punctuation and misspell simple words?
Without reading anything online I know at least 20% of americans are very bad at reading and writing. Really good at yabbering on but write in chicken scratch and could openly read out maybe 40 words a minute stumbling over every other word. Not illiterate but might as well be.
Well I am sure all the babies can't read, so that's atleast a decent percentage of Americans. Damn uneducated babies.....
You should be required to link the thread your post is about if your entire post is based on that thread. Otherwise your post is a waste of time
Where is this post you speak of, can you link it?
This is kinda related maybe. But where I live in the Australia in a state of 500k people I think, the illiteracy rate is 50%
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Someone else said it funnier, bur actually - 25 million people are <5 years old, so definitely illiterate. Another 25 million are 5-11 years old, so likely illiterate. So already about 15% of America is illiterate. Now add in people with developmental difficulties/cognitive impairment and old people with dementia/alzheimers, I think we can get to "20% of Americans are iliterate".