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/

www.brookings.edu/research/girls-boys-and-reading/

My reading age will be very good, I think, as it’s basically what I do all day as an adult in my job.

One interesting fact about reading skills: girls do much better than boys in reading in all societies, but the difference evaporates with age. In adulthood, men improve at a quicker rate than women so that it evens out, and after age 35, men tend to have somewhat better reading skills than women - even though women read for pleasure a lot more than men.

www.brookings.edu/research/girls-boys-and-reading/

That'll be a motherhood penalty.

All those years of reading the same 4 picture books, you mean?

Actually, surveys show women read a lot more at all ages than men (not just kids' books - their own books). But there is a small gap in men's favour, when it comes to tested reading comprehension, in the international surveys of adult skills. Probably because men have slightly better general knowledge (science, current affairs, geopolitics etc.) than women and this tends to accumulate over time - and reading comp exercises tend to be on non-fiction texts where general knowledge is the key to comprehension.

I'd assume I'd a 5 because I have a PhD in a subject that needed me to read texts including scientific stuff an analyse them rather than accepting everything.

I was interested in jaslima's comment a few days back about reading scripture - that can involve layer upon layer of understanding - there's the immediate text, sometimes something you've read or heard since childhood with all the lazy distortion that can hold; there's historical background or absence of same regarding both the writer and the narrative; awareness of how scholars have interpreted it over the millennia and how it was used to affect people's lives; and the immediate 'what does this mean for me, as a woman, as a feminist, as a person living now but still drinking from this well?' And of course, the question of who translated the version you're reading, and what the translator is trying to do in their mediation between the ancient text and their expected reader.

Lots and lots going on there.

After the ridiculously easy test posted in the thread earlier I went looking for a different one and found these www.verbalreasoningtest.org found I did have to read carefully to answer the questions so not too easy

I then clicked on a link for other tests, tried a logical reasoning one and did absolutely terribly clearly logic is not my strong point!

@2023a Before I can answer your question I need to know: what defined "reading levels" are you referring to? Please send or post the link. thank you

The link is in the OP.

reading comp exercises tend to be on non-fiction texts where general knowledge is the key to comprehension

So the test is gendered and then they are surprised they get a gendered result? A better test would include non-fiction and fiction and poetry. Harder to test comprehension of texts where it can be interpreted in multiple ways of course so they go for the easy option.

I suspect it’s quite high, I write and interpret documents for a living, and reading and writing have always been things I enjoyed. Perhaps that’s the key to it: enjoyment? My sibling doesn’t really like reading so doesn’t do it for pleasure, whereas I live my life surrounded by books, can’t imagine a train journey without taking a book with me and so on.

As a child I was put up several reading levels when a wonderful teacher realised I found my “age” level far too easy and was getting bored. I think it also helps that I went to schools where reading was absolutely encouraged, school libraries were freely available etc. as well as my parents being readers who understood the importance of children being encourage to choose books and read.

A better test would include non-fiction and fiction and poetry. Harder to test comprehension of texts where it can be interpreted in multiple ways of course so they go for the easy option.

Totally agree with you @JaninaDuszejko, but of course they solve that via those dire 'compare and contrast' type questions. You know the ones: 'Compare and contrast James Joyce's description of Dublin in Ulysses with how TS Eliot talks about The Wasteland in his famous poem of the same name.' Totally nonsensical.

Well.... it's not like they deliberately tried to make men look better by "picking texts that men are bound to do better at."

They will have chosen largely non-fiction texts because these surveys of adult skills are about whether people have the capacity to be effective workers, informed voters, intelligent consumers, safe users of medical care and so on, and the ability to read non-fiction texts is really important for all of these things, a lot more than being able to mentally enter the inner life of a poem or talk about a character in a work of fiction.

I get that there is some defensiveness about this, but if women are generally somewhat less informed than men about current affairs, scientific matters (example: how nuclear power works) and so on, then the rational response would be, "let's improve this situation," rather than wanting the test to be changed.

Well it depends what you mean “improve the situation”

I would suggest being able to enter the inner life of a poem is far more beneficial to humanity than understanding the workings of a nuclear power station. The patriarchy has got is valuing things that actually hardly matter at all.

Personally, I think schools need to do more to educate young people about the media. It's frightening how some people really do believe everything they read. They don't ask "Why?" Why am I being told this. Why has the journalist used these particular words. What is their agenda. How do I check this is factual.

People vote based on the shit they read in the Daily Mail (other sources of propaganda are available). That is terrifying. Teaching reading comprehension and critical thinking skills in this area would be much more valuable to society than understanding poetry.

@BadNomad That's part of the curriculum in Finland (DD started being taught how to critically evaluate media in 3rd grade and I assume the teaching carries on in older grades too), I agree its needed, especially in this age of (dis)information warfare.

That's good! Maybe it is taught here now, I wouldn't know, but it definitely wasn't taught when I was in school. We covered Nazi propaganda, but there was no attempt to link it to modern times or other areas. I did make the connection by myself, and now apply "why?" to everything. The media, politics, advertisements, threads on MN etc. But from having conversations with friends and colleagues, it is apparent that not everyone looks beyond the surface.

Er, decarbonizing the energy supply is…. Just a tiny bit important, you know?

But hey ho, I’m probably only saying that because I’ve been indoctrinated by the patriarchy.

I would hope its being taught now, now it's known how important it is. I expect it is to some extent at least.

I would suggest being able to enter the inner life of a poem is far more beneficial to humanity than understanding the workings of a nuclear power station. The patriarchy has got is valuing things that actually hardly matter at all.

I dunno. I have an extensive poetry library, but given we do already have nuclear power stations, I'm quite glad we have people who understand them and can keep them safe.

The thing about education is we should try and give most people the opportunity to learn about a whole range of things. STEM is important, but so are the arts, and a truly balanced education will leave people able to read about all sorts of things. I think we specialise in education too early in the UK, and I think we often put people off subjects at a young age, so then they fail to develop in different areas. A broad education, containing literature, scientific papers, foreign languages, music - together, it contributes to different ways of thinking, and that will all increase literacy because you develop minds which are more capable of cross-referencing, applying principles in different areas and thinking more creatively.

Agree children specialise far too early in the UK and don't get a broad enough education, isn't it year 9 now that they drop subjects?

Maybe if we valued the poetic mind more we wouldn’t have got ourselves into the situation where we needed to decarbonise the energy supply in the first place. The trouble with people not being able to think like a poet is that they keep ploughing on after the same result without considering if the goal is achievable or even desirable

interestingly those in the nuclear industry have had to employ the services of those good with symbols and stories to try and keep future generations safe from the nuclear power waste for the next 100,000 when language will have changed so much an instruction manual won’t cut it. See the documentary Into eternity

Being able to

1. get to the point
2. make meanings clear
3. decipher overly flowery language (so you can tell when somebody is bullshitting or trying to obscure their true intentions)
4. Apply logical reasoning

is arguably more useful.

Otherwise you get people terribly impressed by the long words and imagery whilst completely missing the fact that This Person Is Lying To You.

Don't concentrate upon giving people the tools to persuade and manipulate without including Defence Against the Dark Arts as an intrinsic component of education.

@EBearhug and @Natsku there was an interesting recent thread about Liberal Arts degrees, which are common in America and are gradually finding their way into the UK. You have to do bits of a wide range of subjects, basically.

A lot of posters to that thread thought they were a waste of time as they weren't focused enough on 1 or 2 subjects to give you the depth of knowledge required. But coming from a family with a mixture of medics, scientists, writers and linguists personally I thought it was potentially quite an interesting development.

😂