To be shocked that the national average reading age is 9-11

[SailorSerena]

I often think why are people finding this confusing? It's not difficult! Did any of these posters even read the OP!? When reading threads here. On another thread I saw someone say so you know what the national average reading age is? When peoples comprehension was criticised. So I googled it. And I'm appalled!

How on earth is the UKs reading ability so poor that the average adult has the reading ability of a 10 year old child!?

Do you have a source for this statistic? I find it quite hard to believe this is the average to be honest. How is it measured?

Looking at the entire population of all ages I can believe this. I know of people my age (late 30s) at least 20% left primary school unable to read to an expected year 6 standard, with less reading support in secondary those children probably never improved much. So easily 20% of all those over 35 reading at that level forever, not to mention it’ll be lower the older you get above that. I don’t know about younger but a much smaller slice of the adult population are under 35 so that average sounds likely to me.

The UK is a deeply anti-intellectual country, and most people appear satisfied to gulp on the teat of mass market tv series and blockbuster movies instead of reading. A soothing audio-visual mogadon to help them deal with the grim decline all around them.

I'm not shocked in that the reading age has been low for as long as I can remember.
I mean people used to joke about The Sun newspaper because it only need a reading age of 8 and that's why it was so popular.

New to Mumsnet, I take it?

Lol, and just outed myself for not properly reading the OP. I'll see myself out...

Yes, I work in improving health literacy and in Somerset the average reading age is 8. 1 in 9 people have dyslexia too. I proof read as part of my job but I would never criticise someone writing on a forum like this. Some people are really unaware.

I saw the same comment and googled it myself a few minutes ago too. Yes, very shocking.

And our children start school and learn to read a lot earlier than many other countries. Probably too early if it makes no difference.

You are misreading the stats - you have misunderstood whatever you read (ironic)

I would not be at all surprised. A reading age of 9-11 is considered a functional reading age - the ability to read The Sun, should you so wish. @BuffaloCauliflower, I would think the older population has a higher reading age on average than some younger people. They are the ones who are more likely to use public libraries and read daily newspapers.
It is well-known that around three quarters of people in the prison system are functionally illiterate and innumerate.

I'm not surprised in the slightest.

I see emails floating around work - from top down, bottom up or any level in between, and I want to weep ☹️.

I remember this being stated as the case over 20 years ago.
It was also the av reading age of those that read The Sun - the most popular paper back then.

Care to explain?

I suppose it depends what you mean by average. According to this NHS document (under ‘Guidance and Tools’) the majority of adults in the UK are in the 11-14 year old reading group.

Tool 1 in that document tells you what adults will be able to do in each group.

What’s being misread? These are stats I recognise through work.

The majority of adults in England are in the 11 - 14 year old reading age group.

From a PDF in the NHS library.

I'm shocked that adults who have been through minimum of 11 or 12 years of compulsory schooling have such poor reading skills.

Locally born people drop their H's when they speak and when they post on local Facebook pages they spell how they speak - "Av u seen the accident?" for example. It's as if they don't even know how to spell "have"

Cross posted with @DearestItIsSnowing

What does it actually mean, though? Surely as an adult you can either read, or you can't?

No am not surprised at all. If kids start secondary with a reading age lower than actual age, it's really hard to then improve that level significantly. This is mostly due to lack of time at secondary and lack of motivation by the kids and their parents. It's all about the home and parents/carers and if there isn't any example of reading for pleasure at home then that's very detrimental.

Also loads of adult books are written at a very low reading age level!

Many adults with learning disabilities, dyslexia and so on will have reading ages far below nine.

Then there are the many people who just never pick up a book after they leave school. Plenty will lose the skill of processing large chunks of text, even if they once had it.

Those with really limited reading skills bring the average down.

I have heard this stat before, and I have been advised that some public bodies are instructed to put things out with a reading age of 10 in order to cater for the general public.

What I don't really understand is what a "reading age of 9-11" really means. If I heard that phrase, I would typically assume that it referred to the reading ability of the average 9-11 year old, but I'm not sure how that works if it is also the reading ability of the average adult... surely that would make it an adult reading age?!

Is it saying that the average person's reading ability doesn't progress much past the age of 10 or 11? Or is it measuring modern reading ages against a standard that was established years ago when average reading ages were better? I don't really get what it means.

@SlugsWon how is this being misread exactly?

Why writing for a reading age of 9-11 years old is important
The average reading age for adults in Scotland is 9-11 years old. A lot of what the Scottish and UK governments publish, either online or in print, is classed as too complex for someone with a reading age of 9-11 years old to understand. That means what we publish is too complex for at least half of our readers.

From Scottish government website Readability Manual Readability - Service Manual https://search.app/BkvL67EYiKaa7hAA6

The sun newspaper is written to a reading age of 8 and the times is written to 16 years of age level. It’s about vocab and complexity of the language.

All the text on the gov.uk sites is aimed at a reading age of 9, apparently.

Whilst I agree that this is a 'functional reading' level, it does not allow for much evaluation, analysis or understanding of nuance. Which is actually incredibly worrying when you consider that often people make judgements on very important issues by reading information (hello Brexit).

There is an (fairly conspiratorial but nonetheless plausible) argument that keeping literacy levels low is of benefit to those in power.

I'm an English teacher and used to oversee literary improvement in a school - it's honestly mind-blowing the effect reading well (or not) has on a child's education... It's almost as simple as saying kids who read for pleasure do well, kids who don't, don't. Some studies even suggest that the division between these two demographics in terms of achievement is more pronounced than socio-economic considerations (although of course this is very complex as socio-economic factors tend to have a bearing on reading too).