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!?

Yes my experience too on Facebook groups, especially the local town one with about 20k members.

I agree with all of that. I would be interested to know whether the two streams that you define are rated equally by the source which the OP used.

I got a 21.19 for ASTM E1019-22, it is a technical chemistry standard for testing carbon in alloys. Sections from paper I wrote during my PhD and my thesis come back at 22.32 and 20.37 respectively.

It seems to come back a bit lower for longer passages - probably because most documents consist of simpler linking text between the ideas, and longer sections will include more such, reducing the average difficulty

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day is 7.79.

Let me no to the marriage of true minds admit impediments is 10.13

The abstract of a scientific paper I wrote was 17.25

But the winner was this sentence from the opening chapter of a novel by Stephen Keeler who is one of the authors regularly described as the worst writer ever. It scored 27.37.

“It must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmesian cap; nor of the latter’s ‘Barr-Bag’ which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl buttons; nor of – in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwumpel – or Suing Sophie.”

Still thinking about this wonderful comment and how correct it is. You are so right, it is like that as a whole, the whole country, and has been for a while, I think. Usually in other countries there is a very deep division between the lower (non-intellectual) and upper classes (intellectual) in this respect, but not in the UK - a semi-autobiographical book by Nancy Mitford depicts their circle's standard attitude to intellectual pursuits - her uncle Matthew “I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another. Also, it is thought that one of the reasons Prince Charles was so misunderstood and even derided by his family was his deep intellectual yearnings and his preference for books rather than hunting.

Quoting a joke by Nancy Mitford about her father as proof of the UK being anti intellectual is rather ironic considering Nancy and Jessica are still widely read.

But anyway, the upper classes in the UK are not the intellectuals, they are the upper class because of (in) breeding and either being a good pal or illegitimate child of the king a long time ago. The intelligentsia in this country are middle class.

@L1ghtP0ur

We’re talking about literacy standard. How does meeting the reading standard of the ks2 tests in English and maths mean a person is not functional? What in everyday life won’t they be able to do.

I think it helps to reframe your question:

"What sort of activities can be part of 'everyday life' for a person who has KS2 (or less, or more)?"

If you can confidently read a contract, understand workplace policies, read tax advice, board papers, etc then your 'everyday life' can be very different from someone who can't.

(If your answer is 'reading tax advice and board papers isn't everyday life' you are kind of illustrating my point).

It doesn't surprise me at all.
The reading scandal was brought to my own door with my dc, one dc had a reading and spelling age of 15 when in primary the other was almost the bottom of the class.
Same parents, upbringing, lots of books loads of audio books.
The difference which I discovered was simply one dc not getting phonics.
She she failed the test which means it becomes about even more phonics to pass the next one.
Actually learning to read becomes forgotten about!
Thankfully during covid I was able to take it in hand and get down to basics with different ways of learning to read and she went back fluent

However many dc won't have me or a resource like me and those poor buggers just get more and more phonics even though it's a barrier.

I'm extremely dismayed at Bridget Philipson doubling down on phonics.

Nail on the head there. So much is "normal" life for some people, as you say, like reading a car lease or preparing your own tax return, which is just out of the question for someone else.

That’s an amazingly long sentence.

This, 100%.

How do you think Brexit happened?

This.

I used to prepare children for 11+ and Common Entrance exams and would encourage them to read children's classics as the vocabulary is much more advanced. This included children with dyslexic who can get the same benefits by listening to audiobooks.

Also, reading is not just about decoding words but inference, prediction, understanding the use of words in context, etc.

I remember wondering on here if my dd was reading for the right age, she was year 2 and had read and re read A series of unfortunate events and understood it. I was repeatedly told she couldn't possibly understand it

Let's face it, if the likes of farage are becoming more popular, then a lot of people are pretty ignorant/thick.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/parents-and-families/adult-literacy/

She's giving the title page a good, hard read there.

I think part of the problem is actually sloppy writing. Your post, for example, OP, is poorly punctuated and I had to read it twice to be sure about what you meant. If we write things clearly, people are less likely to misunderstand.

The reading tests don't look at punctuation. It's all down to the number of words with more than two syllables and the number of words in a sentence.

It had a lot to do with it unfortunately.

keeping literacy levels low is of benefit to those in power
Aint that the truth!

You're criticizing punctuation😆
Is there a 2 for one offer on commas🤣

Exactly what I was wondering. Sounds like a nonsense benchmark.

Some years ago, a primary school in my local area brought in speech therapists to help the pupils. This was a huge success because afterwards the pupils' written work improved dramatically!

I am not surprised as I've been aware of the stats for years, but I continue to find it shocking.
I am running a one woman campaign in my department to try and keep written information clear and straightforward. My colleagues are all great at reading and do love writing a complex sentence with fancy words.
They struggle to adapt their style to a public where many will struggle to read and others are reading English as a foreign language.