Talk:Literacy in the United States

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Cleanup

Performed cleanup requested a year ago and removed tag. The redlinked study is probably the NAAL one but I let that stand for someone else to address as it is too delicious an irony.

signing after the fact. Lycurgus (talk) 04:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This still not addressed so it's not funny anymore. Will combine redundant sections if no one else does, I wrote the second. I'm unclear if the study was called something else in the 90s, I became aware of it after the 2003 survey. However it's obvious both refer to what is now known as the NAAL. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 03:19, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 09:16, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Jenkins Group Survey Inadequately Cited and Suspicious

This article is giving a great deal of weight to results attributed to "a survey by the Jenkins group". The only citation given is to a humorous article in the Crossville Chronicle which merely alludes to the survey in passing. There is no primary source accessible by following links from this article, and I have not been able to find a primary source anywhere on the net.

Given that the results attributed to the survey are very surprising, and given that it is being presented on an equal footing with highly reputable sources, this article needs to either find a primary source for the survey, or else remove references to it, or at least downgrade it to the level of hearsay.

I couldn't find the Jenkins Group survey info online, but I did find a number of other sources citing it (e.g., [1]). One was the book Pamela Bilbrey; Brian Jones (2009), Ordinary Greatness: It's Where You Least Expect It ... Everywhere, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 9780470461723 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help), which says on page 130, "Alarmingly, a study by a custom book publishing firm, the Jenkins Group, found that: One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42% of college graduates never read another book after college." (at least according to this Google book search result -- page 130 isn't previewable online). Re Jerrold R. Jenkins, see this. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Pulled ¶

Removed -

The study details the percentages of U.S. adults who worked full-time, part-time, were unemployed, or who had given up looking for a job and were no longer in the work force. The study also reported the average hourly wages for those who were employed. These data were grouped by literacy level — how well the interviewees responded to material written in English — and indicated that 40 million to 44 million of the 191 million U.S. adults (21% to 23% of them) in the least literate group earned a yearly average of $2,105 and about 50 million adults (25% to 28% of them) in the next-least literate of the five literacy groups earned a yearly average of $5,225. In 1993, the U.S. Census Bureau considered the poverty level threshold for an individual to be $7,363 per year; in 2002, the threshold was $9,183.

Because it doesn't make sense, probably meant $2K and $5K less than something. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 09:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Definition?

The World Factbook prepared by the CIA defines literacy in the United States as "age 15 and over can read and write."

That sentence in the first paragraph doesn't make any sense. "Age 15 and over can read and write" is a sentence fragment that doesn't define anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.158.197.64 (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

It either needs to be re-written as a non-quote "those with the ability to read and write over the age of 15" or have an "[who]" interjected between "over" and "can". Streen (talk) 18:57, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it is not a problem as is but it could be done differently. It is verifiable in a cited reliable source that the CIA Factbook describes the definition of literacy in most countries as "age 15 and over can read and write." disagreement by WP editors re the correctness of the the grammar used in the source quoted is not a valid reason for "correcting" the quote to suite the gramattical sensibilities of the editors. It is possible, however, to express essentially the same information without using a direct quote. That is a matter of editorial judgement to be decided by consensus between editors. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:49, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Avoiding awkwardness in a sentence is a valid enough reason to insert editorial corrections. It is a tool used all the time in many publications. I agree not using a direct quote is necessary, but either solution addresses the problem of awkwardness in the sentence. --Streen (talk) 22:08, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:QUOTE#Comparison with paraphrases. If it is not verbatim text from the cited source, don't cast it in a Wikipedia article as a quotation. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:21, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Your provided link addresses the difference between a quotation and a paraphrase, not the style in which either are used. Quotation rules can be read about here and here. To quote gistly, "If not used verbatim, any alterations must be clearly marked, i.e. [square brackets] for added or replacement text" and "Where there is good reason to change the wording, enclose changes within square brackets..." (from the respective links). While the quote considered in this argument is valid, it can't be used verbatim and allow for a flowing, easy-to-read, easy-to-understand sentence. The only solution is to rewrite the entire thing in order to use the quotation verbatim, replace the quotation with a paraphrase, or include editing brackets (the simplest and most efficient edit, in this case). Streen (talk) 16:19, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Apparent vandalism in the Studies and Methodological Issues sections.

This edit caught my eye because it changed a figure reading 40% to read 50% in a sentence citing a supporting source. When I went to check the cited source I saw that it is dated 2002. Looking at the article, I saw that the assertion there seemed to be about 2008 (the article says, "As in 2008, ...", but the meaning of that was unclear to me as 2008 had not been mentioned previously). Looking back, I found this December 18, 2010 edit. That edit appears to be vandalism, as does this other edit to the article by the same anon.

I don't know enough about the details of this topic to easily sort this out. Could some regular editor of this article please take a look at this? In passing, I did look at [2], [3] and [4] -- these look like sources which might be usefully cited by this article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:12, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

145% unable to locate information in text

"This government study showed that 145% to 2/3 of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text""

145% presumably too high. Ironically, I wasn't able to find the proper figure in the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.237.25.154 (talk) 17:36, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

New Lead Section

I propose to move the current lead section into a section called, "Measuring literacy," and rename the existing section, "Defining and measuring literacy" section as "Defining literacy." I propose to craft a new lead section for this article. I would like to discuss the place of literacy in U.S. curriculum, with some mention of the history of literacy in this context.

I second this motion. The current lead section is far too long. LizzieMack (talk) 14:44, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

New New Lead Section & General Clean Up

After reviewing the article history, I realized that the person who proposed the new lead section had already made their proposed changes. However their new lead section has tone issues, is far too long and reads like an essay rather than an encyclopedia. I also think that the entire article could benefit from copy editing. LizzieMack (talk) 15:25, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

LizzieMack I moved the old lead into a new section titled History, and wrote a new, shorter lead. I did copy editing of the History section, using ref names and deleting duplicated text. I added items from sources I found, but you may not like those sources and delete them, which would be fine. This article does not answer the simple-minded question of what is the level of literacy in the U.S. It discourses on methods of measuring literacy without a really clear timeline of when the methods changed. There is nothing about the Census results in the 19th century about read and write English, which was asked in many years of that century, and does not explain why the U.S., the U.K., and Canada are often missing from tables of literacy by nation put out by international agencies like UNESCO. I say simple-minded meaning myself, as I came to this article wanting to know the level of literacy in the U.S. I still do not really know it, in detailed parts or in one simple number. I found a few sources willing to give an overall number, but I cannot find any number repeated in the places I expected, like those international lists or multiple news articles or even journal articles. I have learned that educators and researchers about education argue much about "what is litercy?" That is marginally interesting, their debates over the decades, but their results are more interesting than the arguments alone, especially from author J. Kozol who could not assess the methods of the U.S. Census Bureau, so simply dismissed them as trash back in 1985. Anyway, this is not my field of specialty, and I hope it might be yours, to attract better writers who know this story better. --Prairieplant (talk) 00:28, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Link to bibliography sandbox with possible sources to use for this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jerseryq/Literacy_in_the_United_States/Bibliography Jerseryq (talk) 01:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)jerseryq

The article is a bit of a mess because so many different definitions of "literacy" are used through the article- there is also a conspicuous lack of international bench-marking, the article may not represent a global view of what constitutes literacy.--1.159.25.36 (talk) 14:55, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

History of Inequity

I've added some information about the history of inequity concerning Asian American exclusionary practices, but I think this section would benefit from a more exhaustive overview of ways literacy education has impacted people of color. Katlett (talk)

First paragraph should be reserved for numerical data

Please avoid non-numerical data with insufficient citations about the definition of literacy in the intro. The NCES definition should not be promoted above other definitions, as it's not the only organization that measures literacy.

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Perspective and Focus

The Section on "Inequity" is full of opinions, normative statements, lacks neutral tone, and is not written in an encyclopedic style. The editor pulled together a lot of good information around school funding and does a good job providing examples of historical discrimination and segregation, but the entire section needs to be either rewritten or edited and expanded. Beyond that the section reads less a history of literacy and illiteracy and more an in-depth history of educational practice, funding, and distribution of students with a whole paragraph worth of information about modern hiring practices in school, and a paragraph devoted to musings based on "rhetoric studies" from an Asian-American perspective. It also lacks regional, generational, and economic factors that contribute to illiteracy which would be included in any review of inequity in literacy for any other country. Where the line should be drawn between literacy and describing a major factor in literacy (primary and secondary public education) is up for debate but I would ask a more experienced editor to read the section in question and flag it for revision. Abdulrahimb (talk) 02:52, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

History of inequity

I was going to move this content from its random placement to the history section, but upon further looking it over I can't see why it's needed in the article at all. It's meandering and confusedly written with no chronological order and barely mentions literacy rates. Maybe it'd be more fitting for an article on public education in the USA, if it were significantly cleaned up. XeCyranium (talk) 23:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect percentages quoted in lead section

The lead section previously stated, "English literacy level test results from 2014 suggest that 21% of U.S. adults between ages 16 and 65 are functionally illiterate by OECD standards, "i.e., unable to successfully determine the meaning of sentences, read relatively short texts to locate a single piece of information, or complete simple forms."

However, the PIAAC 2013 study (https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264204256-en) referenced in the lead section following that quote, when describing Literacy Proficiency at Level 1, states: "Adults performing at this level can complete simple forms, understand basic vocabulary, determine the meaning of sentences, and read continuous texts with a degree of fluency." (page 67)

Thus, the inversed paraphrase of their description in the lead section only applies to adults in the "Proficiency below 1" level.

Even the second reference (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp) states, "Adults classified as below level 1 may be considered functionally illiterate in English".

The percentage of adults in the US that the referenced study found to have a proficiency level below 1 was only 3.9% (chart on page 257 of the first reference); the erroneous 21% is all of the adults not in levels 2+ (13.6% in level 1 + 3.9% below level 1 + 4.2% missing).

Correcting this would also mean the sentence about the 4% of adults in the missing category due to language barriers or disabilities would need to be rephrased slightly. Raffael7777 (talk) 10:57, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes you are right. That was my mistake. I am hoping to overhaul this article but I will avoid making more edits until I have done more thorough reading and analysis to try to avoid any more errors. Bosepheus (talk) 14:08, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Rewriting and reorganizing the article

Hello, first I will say that I am a new Wikipedia editor so I appreciate any help from the more experienced editors. That being said I do have experience writing writing lengthy research papers so I think I at least have the research and writing skills.

I am interested in overhauling this article as the banner suggests. So I thought I would start this talk topic to see what other editors thought about general organization.

For one, I'm not sure what should be covered in the article. Here are some topics I was thinking about:

Right now the history section mostly covers what literacy rates were like at various times in history, but doesn't say much about the history of literacy education, such as the debate between Whole language and Phonics or perhaps the use of literacy tests in voter registration. I also think that more about the effects of the COVID pandemic on literacy could be included.

Most importantly, it seems that there is not really a clear place where what I would consider the central topic of the article, the contemporary state of literacy in the US and its effects, is discussed. Like as the lead mentions, modern jobs require high literacy and also different types of literacy, but there is nothing about that in the body of the article. Contemporary literacy issues get discussed at the end of the History section, in the NAEP section, and in the PIAAC section. The literacy rates section seems to me be similar to the History section, as it discusses basically the different surveys of literacy that have been done over time. So maybe that could be subsumed into history and then we could make a section for contemporary literacy and not have all the subtopics about the different surveys? I guess what I'm saying is it seems like it would be better to look at those surveys and see what they showed about each era and write about it as the history of literacy rather than focusing on the surveys themselves.

There also doesn't really seem to be that much differentiation between adult and child literacy. The literacy education in schools section doesn't really talk about literacy education in schools. Like I think the part about the federal programs is useful, but there also should be a baseline as to just what literacy education in the US looks like, such as, what grade do kids start learning to read? Are there programs to teach digital literacy or other types of literacy? What about homeschooling etc?

This is what I have for now. Would like to hear what others think Bosepheus (talk) 15:21, 14 November 2024 (UTC)