That’s because parents don’t read with and to kids anymore. They either give them a tablet or put on the TV. Plus, the parents themselves don’t read anymore but use phones. It’s sad, and it’s only going to the worse.
The evidence is there on Reddit itself
Not just reading scores, math and science scores have been going down for the last 20 years globally too.
I encourage everyone to click the article and scroll to the bottom that says “explore more” which will break down this data further with 84 other charts to back it up.
JFC, it’s dropping quickly in the Netherlands for lower secondary level.
From 90% in 2000 to 65% in 2022 and for math 94% to 73%.
I know every generation complains about ‘kids these days’, but this will really spiral down quickly.
I’m shocked the US is so high.
The US is doing relatively well, I feel like we usually fall to the bottom of these charts, or at least to the bottom compared to other OECD countries. Eight out of ten still leaves millions behind of course.
I don’t understand this post could you explain?
According to PISA results, in Finland the amount of illiterate kids is about 21% for all, 40% for second generation immigrants and 60% for first gen immigrants. It has been going worse the last 20 years.
I find the 21% overall illiteracy rate (illiteracy = can’t continue studies and can’t function in society) quite catastrophic for kids after 9 years of school.
they need to go to the Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good.
How the heck is the US in the top 5
Reminder to actually look at the post before giving your take. Lot of reading comprehension issues in this comment section already.
I can confirm its more than half here in reddit
I wonder how many contributing factors are outside of standard education. Food and nutrients, home life, economic difficulties, etc.
I’m genx. I raised two kids. I love to read. I read to my kids and encouraged reading from the start. I was flabbergasted the day I realized my youngest could read but could not comprehend. Whip smart but no comprehension. We redoubled efforts and hired tutors as well. This did not help much.
In the first world much of media has moved on from print to audio and video. They are extremely adept in these media spaces but not long form print. I am not concerned, but i was initially, as a parent.
[As per UNESCO](https://gaml.uis.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/Global-Proficiency-Framework-Reading.pdf), the reading comprehension domain consists of three constructs – the ability to retrieve information, interpret information and reflect on information from text. It’s further broken down into subconstructs, such as *recognise the meaning of common grade-level words*, *identify the meaning of unknown words in a grade-level text* and *identify the purpose and audience of a text*. You can assume these are directly related to literacy.
And all of them are in my classes
From the article:
But in poorer countries like Senegal, Zambia, and Cambodia, less than 1 in 20 do.
Stannis Baratheon intensifies.
“Fewer.”
Everyone, please listen to the podcast Sold a Story. It breaks down how changes in public school curriculum have hurt childrens’ reading aptitude in the US. (It doesn’t speak to other countries)
I have a doctorate I feel like my own reading comprehension is not what my advisor’s is. Maybe it is impostor syndrome, but I don’t feel nearly as smart as I think my predecessors were.
I come to two conclusions when I read these kinds of statistics:
1. We in are in trouble as a society when the general populace can’t understand information. Those in power will be able to take advantage of the public because they won’t understand what is going on. Uneducated people make excellent low-wage laborers and undiscerning consumers. (Then again, we do have many overly educated people doing work they never expected to be doing while they pursued their degrees…but that’s another conversation.)
2. The easiest thing we can do for our own kids is to make sure they are doing better than their peers. Reading to our kids each night and helping them to learn to read doesn’t cost anything but time. Literally 15 minutes a day in effort early on can translate to having a child who is considered well above average later on in life.
Education has turned into a sort of arms race at the top and we can’t rely solely on our public schools to teach our kids. I don’t think needing to study outside of school is a new phenomenon though, I remember my mom (who was a teacher) giving us additional workbooks to do during car trips on family vacations. It wasn’t that we were going above and beyond, I think she just wanted to make sure we didn’t regress over summer break and we could return to school ready to learn.
It’s easy to blame technology and say that smartphones are the root of this problem. Again, I see two things:
1. Yes, smartphones are a problem, but it is **parents** who are spending too much time with them and not interacting with their kids early on. Blaming kids and TikTok is so easy but it is a lazy argument. We need to take responsibility for parenting our kids and model behavior that we want them to emulate. Kids learn from their parents and if they see us burying our faces in our phones every chance we get they are more likely to copy our behavior. It’s the same reason smokers didn’t do it in front of their kids: they knew it was wrong and it was a last ditch attempt to shield their kids from something bad.
I realize that I am saying this as an American who has a stable home life and only one child to focus all of my energy on. I don’t blame people in other countries who are struggling to get by…I don’t know how I would be able to survive in other places.
Make them easier to manipulate votes from.
Tablets and “kid friendly” apps are an issue for me. Now it reads everything to you and gives specific detailed instructions to complete tasks. I remember having to figure things out a little more and read instructions. I’m actually going to be going away from the tablet games, even the educational ones (I feel like it’s more of do the task and get the reward rather than learning) in favor of the switch with more difficult problems to solve.
This will get buried, but as much as I agree with the “re-emphasize reading” crowd, there are other institutional things going on here. In the US specifically, you have the deliberate move away from Phonics, teaching for the test, No Child Left Behind. Yes, kids should be off ipads, but to say tech is the main factor is missing a ton of nuance.
Humans are so boned. Not being able to read well almost surely sets us up for easier exploitation.
I wonder if this test was multiple choice and some people got lucky. I work at a college and I feel a lot of people don’t have reading comprehension compared to before ipad babies became a thing though I can’t be certain since I was born in the 90s. When I was younger I feel my peers were better at reading compared to the 16 to 18 year olds in college now
I often wonder why when you’re talking to people on social mdeia why they just…can’t seem to understand what you’re saying.
Wait. Maybe I’m not understanding this chart, but if 49% CAN read with comprehension, then surely ‘over half’ CANNOT rather than ‘nearly half’? Intentional, or ironic?
I’ve stuck pretty hard to “the election was about people needing a scapegoat for inflation, period”, but this honestly is making me doubt that conclusion, at least in part.
People complain about bratty kids but the system hasn’t recovered from not being able to physically or verbally abuse children to get them to comply and instead of growing the tools to treat children as if they are people, they just blame the kids for their inability to connect to the modern child
Simple end true for every country. Read more to understand how this works. It’s an attention capitalism, everything anyone does is based on how much the platform can get your time out of it.
I thought every generation got smarter
“Nearly half of teenagers globally cannot read with comprehension” as a summary of this data is pretty poor English.
I listened to a great investigative journalism podcast on this topic recently called Sold a Story, which gave me a new view on this beyond ‘kids these days are lazy’. The basis of the podcast is that pseudoscientific methods of teaching reading are widely employed throughout the United States (and I imagine elsewhere), which are teaching children to guess at words based on context rather than understanding the words they are looking at. I haven’t fact checked it, but would definitely recommend if anyone’s interested in learning more about the topic!
EDIT: Responding more to the folks who are talking about smartphones degrading reading comprehension, etc., than the countries with extremely low rates which are presumably driven by lack of education.
I really have the impression that this is not restricted to teenagers. And the figure also seems very low
I teach a lab for college freshmen/sophomores. Here I was thinking they just didn’t listen to me or read the manuals.
Welcome to the Dark Ages #2!!
This planned ignorance pisses me off to no end. Imagine if we had our homes back to 1 person income, good health insurance, quality education with equal standards across the board regardless of creed, nationality and religion.
I was eating dinner last night and found out that our waitress is going to school for education, but she is going to college in the 49th ranked for education aka Oklahoma, and it makes me wonder if the college level education from the colleges here are just as horrid as it is for the students in grade school thru high school.
We have many means for our students to be better educated be it books, comics, computer based literature, yet the numbers show such a massive decline in comprehension and reading ability is down right horrible.
Texting my 19 year old cousin is akin to texting a 4th grader. Half the time I can’t understand what they’re trying to express, and the other half they can’t spell for shit, so I’m left wondering what they even attempted to convey.
38 comments
This is why we have Tate et al
That’s because parents don’t read with and to kids anymore. They either give them a tablet or put on the TV. Plus, the parents themselves don’t read anymore but use phones. It’s sad, and it’s only going to the worse.
The evidence is there on Reddit itself
Not just reading scores, math and science scores have been going down for the last 20 years globally too.
I encourage everyone to click the article and scroll to the bottom that says “explore more” which will break down this data further with 84 other charts to back it up.
JFC, it’s dropping quickly in the Netherlands for lower secondary level.
From 90% in 2000 to 65% in 2022 and for math 94% to 73%.
I know every generation complains about ‘kids these days’, but this will really spiral down quickly.
I’m shocked the US is so high.
The US is doing relatively well, I feel like we usually fall to the bottom of these charts, or at least to the bottom compared to other OECD countries. Eight out of ten still leaves millions behind of course.
I don’t understand this post could you explain?
According to PISA results, in Finland the amount of illiterate kids is about 21% for all, 40% for second generation immigrants and 60% for first gen immigrants. It has been going worse the last 20 years.
I find the 21% overall illiteracy rate (illiteracy = can’t continue studies and can’t function in society) quite catastrophic for kids after 9 years of school.
they need to go to the Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good.
How the heck is the US in the top 5
Reminder to actually look at the post before giving your take. Lot of reading comprehension issues in this comment section already.
I can confirm its more than half here in reddit
I wonder how many contributing factors are outside of standard education. Food and nutrients, home life, economic difficulties, etc.
I’m genx. I raised two kids. I love to read. I read to my kids and encouraged reading from the start. I was flabbergasted the day I realized my youngest could read but could not comprehend. Whip smart but no comprehension. We redoubled efforts and hired tutors as well. This did not help much.
In the first world much of media has moved on from print to audio and video. They are extremely adept in these media spaces but not long form print. I am not concerned, but i was initially, as a parent.
[As per UNESCO](https://gaml.uis.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/Global-Proficiency-Framework-Reading.pdf), the reading comprehension domain consists of three constructs – the ability to retrieve information, interpret information and reflect on information from text. It’s further broken down into subconstructs, such as *recognise the meaning of common grade-level words*, *identify the meaning of unknown words in a grade-level text* and *identify the purpose and audience of a text*. You can assume these are directly related to literacy.
And all of them are in my classes
From the article:
But in poorer countries like Senegal, Zambia, and Cambodia, less than 1 in 20 do.
Stannis Baratheon intensifies.
“Fewer.”
Everyone, please listen to the podcast Sold a Story. It breaks down how changes in public school curriculum have hurt childrens’ reading aptitude in the US. (It doesn’t speak to other countries)
I have a doctorate I feel like my own reading comprehension is not what my advisor’s is. Maybe it is impostor syndrome, but I don’t feel nearly as smart as I think my predecessors were.
I come to two conclusions when I read these kinds of statistics:
1. We in are in trouble as a society when the general populace can’t understand information. Those in power will be able to take advantage of the public because they won’t understand what is going on. Uneducated people make excellent low-wage laborers and undiscerning consumers. (Then again, we do have many overly educated people doing work they never expected to be doing while they pursued their degrees…but that’s another conversation.)
2. The easiest thing we can do for our own kids is to make sure they are doing better than their peers. Reading to our kids each night and helping them to learn to read doesn’t cost anything but time. Literally 15 minutes a day in effort early on can translate to having a child who is considered well above average later on in life.
Education has turned into a sort of arms race at the top and we can’t rely solely on our public schools to teach our kids. I don’t think needing to study outside of school is a new phenomenon though, I remember my mom (who was a teacher) giving us additional workbooks to do during car trips on family vacations. It wasn’t that we were going above and beyond, I think she just wanted to make sure we didn’t regress over summer break and we could return to school ready to learn.
It’s easy to blame technology and say that smartphones are the root of this problem. Again, I see two things:
1. Yes, smartphones are a problem, but it is **parents** who are spending too much time with them and not interacting with their kids early on. Blaming kids and TikTok is so easy but it is a lazy argument. We need to take responsibility for parenting our kids and model behavior that we want them to emulate. Kids learn from their parents and if they see us burying our faces in our phones every chance we get they are more likely to copy our behavior. It’s the same reason smokers didn’t do it in front of their kids: they knew it was wrong and it was a last ditch attempt to shield their kids from something bad.
2. Technology is here to stay. Instead of fighting it we need to embrace it and find ways to use it for good. There was a time when people were chastised for [reading too much](https://clivethompson.medium.com/why-novels-will-destroy-your-mind-796f3cdc8d5f#:~:text=Back%20in%20the%2018th%20and,%E2%80%94%20shallow%2C%20addictive%2C%20and%20dangerous).
I realize that I am saying this as an American who has a stable home life and only one child to focus all of my energy on. I don’t blame people in other countries who are struggling to get by…I don’t know how I would be able to survive in other places.
Make them easier to manipulate votes from.
Tablets and “kid friendly” apps are an issue for me. Now it reads everything to you and gives specific detailed instructions to complete tasks. I remember having to figure things out a little more and read instructions. I’m actually going to be going away from the tablet games, even the educational ones (I feel like it’s more of do the task and get the reward rather than learning) in favor of the switch with more difficult problems to solve.
This will get buried, but as much as I agree with the “re-emphasize reading” crowd, there are other institutional things going on here. In the US specifically, you have the deliberate move away from Phonics, teaching for the test, No Child Left Behind. Yes, kids should be off ipads, but to say tech is the main factor is missing a ton of nuance.
Humans are so boned. Not being able to read well almost surely sets us up for easier exploitation.
I wonder if this test was multiple choice and some people got lucky. I work at a college and I feel a lot of people don’t have reading comprehension compared to before ipad babies became a thing though I can’t be certain since I was born in the 90s. When I was younger I feel my peers were better at reading compared to the 16 to 18 year olds in college now
I often wonder why when you’re talking to people on social mdeia why they just…can’t seem to understand what you’re saying.
Wait. Maybe I’m not understanding this chart, but if 49% CAN read with comprehension, then surely ‘over half’ CANNOT rather than ‘nearly half’? Intentional, or ironic?
I’ve stuck pretty hard to “the election was about people needing a scapegoat for inflation, period”, but this honestly is making me doubt that conclusion, at least in part.
People complain about bratty kids but the system hasn’t recovered from not being able to physically or verbally abuse children to get them to comply and instead of growing the tools to treat children as if they are people, they just blame the kids for their inability to connect to the modern child
Simple end true for every country. Read more to understand how this works. It’s an attention capitalism, everything anyone does is based on how much the platform can get your time out of it.
I thought every generation got smarter
“Nearly half of teenagers globally cannot read with comprehension” as a summary of this data is pretty poor English.
I listened to a great investigative journalism podcast on this topic recently called Sold a Story, which gave me a new view on this beyond ‘kids these days are lazy’. The basis of the podcast is that pseudoscientific methods of teaching reading are widely employed throughout the United States (and I imagine elsewhere), which are teaching children to guess at words based on context rather than understanding the words they are looking at. I haven’t fact checked it, but would definitely recommend if anyone’s interested in learning more about the topic!
EDIT: Responding more to the folks who are talking about smartphones degrading reading comprehension, etc., than the countries with extremely low rates which are presumably driven by lack of education.
I really have the impression that this is not restricted to teenagers. And the figure also seems very low
I teach a lab for college freshmen/sophomores. Here I was thinking they just didn’t listen to me or read the manuals.
Welcome to the Dark Ages #2!!
This planned ignorance pisses me off to no end. Imagine if we had our homes back to 1 person income, good health insurance, quality education with equal standards across the board regardless of creed, nationality and religion.
I was eating dinner last night and found out that our waitress is going to school for education, but she is going to college in the 49th ranked for education aka Oklahoma, and it makes me wonder if the college level education from the colleges here are just as horrid as it is for the students in grade school thru high school.
We have many means for our students to be better educated be it books, comics, computer based literature, yet the numbers show such a massive decline in comprehension and reading ability is down right horrible.
Texting my 19 year old cousin is akin to texting a 4th grader. Half the time I can’t understand what they’re trying to express, and the other half they can’t spell for shit, so I’m left wondering what they even attempted to convey.
Isn’t it the point of reading?
Comments are closed.