To ask what you think your reading level might be?

[2023a]

I think lots of us have had the odd frustrating conversation on here, where the other person just hasn’t seemed to be able to grasp what we’re saying. Apparently, it’s very possible that the posters in question genuinely don’t understand.

A 2011 government survey of adult literacy skills found that 14.9% (or 1 in 7) of adults in England have literacy levels at or below Entry Level 3, which is equivalent to the literacy skills expected of a nine to 11-year-old.

More recently, in 2015, the OECD conducted its Survey of Adult Skills, known as PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies). This survey found that 16.4% (or 1 in 6) of adults in England, and 17.4% (or 1 in 5) adults in Northern Ireland, have literacy levels at or below Level 1, which is considered to be 'very poor literacy skills'.

More info here, if you’re interested: literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/what-do-adult-literacy-levels-mean/

I found this test online which gives you a level 1-5, not sure if there is any accuracy to it. (It says you have 15 minutes but I found it only took a couple of minutes, if the length of the test puts anyone off).

www.englishclub.com/reading/test-start.htm?

I do remember regularly using an online reading age test when I was home educating, I will try to find it.

I was astounded when I worked in FE a few years ago at the number of adult students that had been through the school system in the UK, yet were coming back to college to do very basic literacy (and numeracy) courses.

I say that as someone who (perhaps hubristically!) would self assess as level 5

I would also self assess as level 5. However, I just had to Google the definition of 'hubristically' 😂 So maybe there's level 5 and level 5!

@ThinWomansBrain

It doesn't astound me any more after both experience in eduction and also with my own dd who was not reading.

We had to intervene and do it ourselves, so many dc have parents who wait, trusting the teachers and the "system" ( that I now know doesn't exist).

Many parents can't or won't help for a multitude of reasons.

Interesting.
I'm bright enough, not exceptionally so.
I am often shocked at mn posters lack of intellect, more so their lack of emotional intelligence.
None of the jobs I've ever had have any of my colleagues been anything other than equally bright, even some of my young first waitressing jobs. My most recent job some of the staff we hire can't count, can't add up their timesheets.
Not many things in life I've ever read did I have trouble understanding. But some of the Maya forester threads, I struggled to grasp some of the legal posts and I found that kind of embarrassing.

It’s an interesting idea but I think you’d be surprised how many people in STEM have relatively poor literacy skills, my dp included. I think the skills needed to work with numbers and computer code are quite different to those needed for literacy.

This makes me wonder again about the validity of the left brain vs right brain models of intelligence. (Left brain corresponds with mathematical intelligence, spatial awareness etc while rich brain with literacy/language/rhetoric). I have read that this has been debunked and I am sure it’s quite a blunt instrument as some people clearly have both or neither.

But I can’t help feeling a lot of people’s intelligence tends to lean more on one side or the other. I have relatively high levels of “right brain” aptitude but pretty low numerical literacy. My partner is mathematically brilliant and perfectly literate but his intelligence definitely leans towards problem solving and so forth, much less towards linguistic fluency.

This may be a nurture rather than a nature thing and I’m sure education exacerbates it but I’m convinced that most people develop strengths on one side and not the other.

Well I'm level 5 according to that test and got 100%. I can clearly see how people quickly reading posts on here might misread though, I've done it myself with emails at work then realised later.

The brain has plasticity and reponds to use. Most adults use some skills more than others in their lives that then builds up their abilities in those areas. However I really don't think that's as simple as a STEM humanities divide. Although I suspect all of us would benefit from pushing our brain to practice the skills we use least in our working day.

I got a 100% in the test - I'd say I'm between a 4 and a 5 though. I do a lot of reading and analysis for work, and read a lot of fiction.

I remember at art school though having to read French philosophy (in translation) and utterly failing to understand it, which is keeping me from declaring myself a 5. I used to take it slowly, sentence by sentence. The individual words, I understood. Maybe even sentences. Their overall meaning though, nope.

That's ludicrously easy and takes 3 minutes. I can't believe that is level 5, because I would expect most people I work with to get 100% and a sizeable proportion of others I know to get 100%. Maybe I'm misunderstanding these levels and higher levels cover a far higher proportion of the population; what percentage of the population is thought to be level 5?

If it was Descartes then by all means mark yourself down, but Sarte and de Beauvoir both have text elements that are all but incomprehensible in translation. I vividly remember sitting on a bus reading Sartre's existential confusion about more space between atoms than there were atoms, and thinking "is it him that's mad not to understand this, is it an awful translation, or is it me?". I decided it was conclusively him when I read his later texts.

• Level 3: Adults are required to read and navigate dense, lengthy or complex texts.
• Level 4: Adults can integrate, interpret or synthesise information from complex or lengthy texts. Adults can identify and understand one or more specific, non-central idea(s) in the text in order to interpret or evaluate subtle evidence-claim or persuasive discourse relationships.
• Level 5: Adults can search for, and integrate, information across multiple, dense texts; construct syntheses of similar and contrasting ideas or points of view; or evaluate evidence based arguments. Adults understand subtle, rhetorical cues and can make high-level inferences or use specialised background knowledge.

It would take a more complex test even for level 3. Never mind higher levels.

I asked my friend where she would go for the best chance of food and shelter if she became homeless. She couldn’t answer because she couldn’t imagine herself being homeless. She started talking about her investments and such, to explain how that couldn’t possibly happen.

The French philosophers were Deleuze and possible Derrida. Bachelard I could just about cope with.

I write and read complex scientific based documents for a living. This includes journal articles, legal application documents, complex proposals etc.. I’d argue my literacy level is a 5. I know of plenty of folks with very limited literacy and often provide support with form filling.

On a good day, 5 (have three degrees). On a day like today, frazzled and with a migraine, barely 2.

I think this is aimed at non-native English speakers and is likely a scam to get them to sign up for some kind of tuition. I found the questions ridiculously simple but i only got 90%, apparently. Hmm… I'm quite sure I should have had 100% but (conveniently) it doesn't tell you what your wrong answers were!

That test has nothing to do with the levels linked in the OP, though.

Probably not that high, I’m not a native speaker and I can’t read my first language at all. I’m not a great second language speaker as I have to translate, I can’t talk in English with natural fluent flow, so with reading I can really struggle with things like tone and context.

I recognise your username from on here, and this has really surprised me — your written English seems native-speaker level.

Yeah, I reckon maybe I might have been a 5 once, but between quite repetitive technical work, joys of parenthood/middle age, and chronic insomnia, I would be heading down the levels at a rate of knots nowadays!

English is my second language, but looking at the criteria, I'd be L5 (those skills are a vital part of my job).

Oh, and this is a really fascinating thread!

This is really interesting. I love learning and reading generally. Did the test and a 5. I think the issue with a lot of people who don't read is undiagnosed learning difficulties. Thinking that you're not very good at something is probably the biggest limitation to a decent literacy level.

Why would that shock you for a prison?

@MagicCat83 I've recently come to the conclusion that my daily newspaper (New Zealand Herald) has been using ChatGPT to write most of their articles for some considerable time now 😁