We can always try to do better, but I don't see any way around it for things like building codes, regulations, and legal contracts. Simple rules have lots of loopholes and grey areas. They will be...
We can always try to do better, but I don't see any way around it for things like building codes, regulations, and legal contracts. Simple rules have lots of loopholes and grey areas. They will be gamed.
The reintroduction of phonics to most American schools should help with that over the long-term! Literacy rate statistics are also a bit skewed by the number of immigrants in America.
The reintroduction of phonics to most American schools should help with that over the long-term! Literacy rate statistics are also a bit skewed by the number of immigrants in America.
I do worry that we're going to shift too far in the other direction. We're already seeing schools teach very few full length books. Purely phonics based education means even less exposure to real...
I do worry that we're going to shift too far in the other direction. We're already seeing schools teach very few full length books. Purely phonics based education means even less exposure to real (not highly controlled vocabulary) books in the early grades as well. Without good stories as a reward, reading could end up being a miserable slog.
The sane way to deal with this is to have large parts of the curriculum be teacher read aloud of high quality literature, but I don't trust modern curriculum designers focused on a checklist of two dozen "skills" to allot time for that...
Phonics can absolutely still accompany reading actual stories in school, and there's nothing about the alternative approaches that means they'd be exposed to more reading or a wider variety. If...
Phonics can absolutely still accompany reading actual stories in school, and there's nothing about the alternative approaches that means they'd be exposed to more reading or a wider variety. If anything, phonics would need less heavy control of the vocabulary in books than approaches that rely on learning "sight words".
My kid's program is phonics-first, reading interterest second, sight words third. They specifically focus on small words first for sight words (I, it, is, the, etc), so that they can focus on the...
My kid's program is phonics-first, reading interterest second, sight words third.
They specifically focus on small words first for sight words (I, it, is, the, etc), so that they can focus on the phonetic approach on larger words. It helps speed up that initial curve so that they can start building interest faster.
I think most of those very common small words serve as exceptions to the phonics rules they'd need to learn anyway, so that makes sense. Even in a system that teaches phonics, you have to grapple...
I think most of those very common small words serve as exceptions to the phonics rules they'd need to learn anyway, so that makes sense. Even in a system that teaches phonics, you have to grapple with a lot of nonsense in the English writing system that's not super phonetic.
I know they can, I've just seen enough teachers talking about absolutely absurd reading curriculums that I don't trust that they will. Mediation is necessary in all things - - a strong and...
I know they can, I've just seen enough teachers talking about absolutely absurd reading curriculums that I don't trust that they will.
Mediation is necessary in all things - - a strong and systemic basis in phonics is necessary for around half of readers. But phonics are also a list of boring rules, so if it's focused on to the exclusion of enough good literature, you'll end up with kids who can decode, but never get enough practice to do read effortlessly without needing to decode, because they hate it.
That said, to be clear, phonics are vital. Using a phonics based approach just means that curriculum should consider building interest as a vital concern and not a secondary one, like I suspect many curriculums do.
What that might look like is even in a boxed curriculum that normally specifies all literature, allowing teachers to regularly (meaning multiple times a week) choose high interest books for their particular class and spend significant time reading them aloud.
I think you're severely underestimating how much boring nonsense that turned kids off reading was part of the system without phonics. My younger siblings learned such a system, and there was a lot...
I think you're severely underestimating how much boring nonsense that turned kids off reading was part of the system without phonics. My younger siblings learned such a system, and there was a lot of testing them on how quickly they could read a list of sight words in isolation (that is, not even part of a larger text, much less one that interested them) out loud. The amount of time spent on bullshit like that more than makes up for any time spent on learning the rules of phonics. There's plenty of boring stuff in the old approach that learning phonics can replace without any change in the amount of pleasurable reading.
Actually reading stories they enjoy and are interested in is an incredibly important aspect of the curriculum for getting children to actually care about and understand what they read, but its presence or absence is orthogonal from whether a phonics-based approach is what's used to teach kids to read.
My kid is going through the new early phonics program. Is now in 2nd grade. The curriculum, best I can tell, is largely reading-first, with only a small fraction of that being 'the boring stuff.'...
My kid is going through the new early phonics program. Is now in 2nd grade. The curriculum, best I can tell, is largely reading-first, with only a small fraction of that being 'the boring stuff.'
Right now their reading level is mostly not constrained by their ability to read words, but rather finding stories at a sufficient level of complexity that they find interesting.
So, at least for good school districts, that's what they're doing.
Slightly off topic but still notable: this creates a related problem in advanced readers in 5th grade or so. What happens is the intellectually interesting books are too advanced socially and...
but rather finding stories at a sufficient level of complexity that they find interesting.
Slightly off topic but still notable: this creates a related problem in advanced readers in 5th grade or so. What happens is the intellectually interesting books are too advanced socially and emotionally, and can create emotional health problems.
I can only speak from my experience amd that of my kids. My amygdala and limbic system were bot ready for the emotions associated with cruelty and existential dread of teen stuff at age 9 and 10....
I can only speak from my experience amd that of my kids. My amygdala and limbic system were bot ready for the emotions associated with cruelty and existential dread of teen stuff at age 9 and 10. The violence isn’t a big deal and most of the sex, but themes like betrayal, abandonment, meaninglessness, these left me and especially my daughter very anxious and mistrustful.
I didn't notice that; what I have noticed is going back to books for adults that I loved as a kid and noticing how much subtext I entirely missed in the early readings.
I didn't notice that; what I have noticed is going back to books for adults that I loved as a kid and noticing how much subtext I entirely missed in the early readings.
That's excellent to hear, but yeah it's not the "good" (high income) schools that I worry about. Most of those kids would have learned to read even with Lucy Calkins and nothing else. It's the...
That's excellent to hear, but yeah it's not the "good" (high income) schools that I worry about. Most of those kids would have learned to read even with Lucy Calkins and nothing else. It's the places where for most kids, the only read aloud they get is at school, and teachers are under far more pressure to follow inappropriately fast paced curriculum with fidelity - - the first things that are going to be cut for time is the leisure reading.
The problem is that a lot of 'high literature' is utterly boring, especially the earlier in the program. Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy kid have done far more to build reading skills.
The problem is that a lot of 'high literature' is utterly boring, especially the earlier in the program.
Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy kid have done far more to build reading skills.
I don't think programs at the age where kids are still learning phonics typically focus on anything like "high literature" anyway. At least in my experience, programs for very young children like...
I don't think programs at the age where kids are still learning phonics typically focus on anything like "high literature" anyway. At least in my experience, programs for very young children like that DO focus on learning to read whatever the child enjoys, with the switch to only reading "literature" happening somewhat abruptly later on.
I'm in absolute agreement. For independent reading, a kid can read a cereal box if that's what they like, and that will help with building a vocabulary of sight words from their decoding.
I'm in absolute agreement. For independent reading, a kid can read a cereal box if that's what they like, and that will help with building a vocabulary of sight words from their decoding.
You can't ignore the other major factor: The South has a particularly nasty case of anti-government and anti-intellectualism. My cousins are raising kids in North Carolina and the school programs...
You can't ignore the other major factor:
The South has a particularly nasty case of anti-government and anti-intellectualism. My cousins are raising kids in North Carolina and the school programs are abyssal compared to even a very-middling PA district.
This is fantastic news, as education is a gateway drug to liberalism. There's a reason Republicans have been waging war against public education for 160+ years.
This is fantastic news, as education is a gateway drug to liberalism. There's a reason Republicans have been waging war against public education for 160+ years.
IMO the advantage of phonics are overstated, or at least the primacy of language learning by phonics. Taiwan and China have excellent reading rates with a non-phonetic language entirely. Japan as...
IMO the advantage of phonics are overstated, or at least the primacy of language learning by phonics. Taiwan and China have excellent reading rates with a non-phonetic language entirely. Japan as well, to a lesser extent.
Chinese is taught phonetically through the use of the phonetic alphabet Pinyin invented in 50s China for the purpose of improving literacy rates and romanizing Chinese, or the older Zhuyin system...
Chinese is taught phonetically through the use of the phonetic alphabet Pinyin invented in 50s China for the purpose of improving literacy rates and romanizing Chinese, or the older Zhuyin system if you're in Taiwan. I learned Chinese through Zhuyin, sounding words out. Literacy rates in China used to be dismal; now it's almost 100%, which is impressive considering that learning to write and read Chinese is arguably much more difficult than learning to write and read English. (Grammatically, Chinese is actually simpler, funny enough.)
As an outsider to literacy education, it seems a bit funny that Chinese moved to phonics to improve literacy, and now English is moving away from it. Maybe Chinese and English are different enough that paradoxically both approaches can be right, but right now I feel that one is probably wrong.
I know, Chinese was my 0.5th language. But the overall way to learn chinese is very similar to the “sighting” method often decried by phonetic proponents. It’s not like there’s anywhere in the US...
I know, Chinese was my 0.5th language. But the overall way to learn chinese is very similar to the “sighting” method often decried by phonetic proponents. It’s not like there’s anywhere in the US where the phonetic component is ignored - it is a phonetic language to begin with.
In terms of reading methods, they literally did teach kids to just recognize and guess words based on context. They weren't taught how to sound out words. They taught kids to read as if every word...
It’s not like there’s anywhere in the US where the phonetic component is ignored
In terms of reading methods, they literally did teach kids to just recognize and guess words based on context. They weren't taught how to sound out words. They taught kids to read as if every word was made up of hanzi with a reading based on context and order of the letters.
I think that it doesn't help to compare learning non-phonetic languages and phonetic ones when you're looking at phonetic learning methods. It seems obvious to me that there'd be a difference, and...
I think that it doesn't help to compare learning non-phonetic languages and phonetic ones when you're looking at phonetic learning methods. It seems obvious to me that there'd be a difference, and if I understand the data I've seen, phonics worked a lot better than the emphasis on sight-reading for English.
That's a long term solution, in the sort term a lot can probably be achieved by making many resources more accessible by rewriting them. I just wrote this comment about it.
That's a long term solution, in the sort term a lot can probably be achieved by making many resources more accessible by rewriting them. I just wrote this comment about it.
Updating the legal code and corporate documents sounds like a long term solution too. Especially if the author was correct in thinking those things were intentionally obfuscated.
Updating the legal code and corporate documents sounds like a long term solution too. Especially if the author was correct in thinking those things were intentionally obfuscated.
Updating documents can be started on today and have an immediate impact for those documents that have been updated. Of course, this does assume good faith from the organizations that write these...
Updating documents can be started on today and have an immediate impact for those documents that have been updated. Of course, this does assume good faith from the organizations that write these documents in the first place, I agree there.
It will likely take a long time to fully transform all things out there, so it isn't exactly a short term solution either. I do feel like it would take effect sooner than education reforms would.
But, to be very clear, I also think that education should be worked on as well. It is more a "why not both" kind of thing in my mind. Education to raise the overall average, more accessible documents for those people who still will have trouble reading.
The thing is, in modern law I don't think there's really such a thing as a loophole. The companies involved all donate to their favorite politicians, who then use corporate feedback when crafting...
The thing is, in modern law I don't think there's really such a thing as a loophole. The companies involved all donate to their favorite politicians, who then use corporate feedback when crafting applicable laws. Which would be fine if everyone was agreed that the purpose of the laws was to protect people - but the laws wouldn't be needed if that was true. So the corporations deliberately push for seemingly-clear-sounding language that includes "loopholes" that they know they'll exploit later on, and the legislators know this but have been paid enough not to question things too closely. And if the corpos can't get enough of what they want, or there's pushback from the legislators, the corpos will astroturf a "citizen's response" to get what they want.
When they were trying to roll out state-wide broadband in New Jersey a decade or two ago, the state sought feedback from the corporations on what was reasonable to include - after all, the corporations knew the technical requirements and stuff best, had been studying it for years and knew what was feasible. So the [?law ?contract] was written with the intent of requiring the winning company/corporation to be legally required to run FiOS to pretty much every household in the state, and Verizon won a (I think) $10,000,000,000 contract to do just that.
And they got right to work on it, wiring all the easy, high-return, high-density areas and some of the county seats, and the state was pretty satisfied - until the roll-out slowed down noticeably a couple years later. So the state went to Verizon and said, "Hey, what's up, you're supposed to be wiring the rest of the state?", and Verizon turned around and said, "Read the [?law ?contract]. Technically, we're only required to wire the county seats of each county in New Jersey, not anything else. We''ll finish the county seats, but otherwise we're good where we are." And that's pretty much exactly what happened.
Any time there's a chance for money to be made, or expenses to be avoided, there's going to be some corporation there, busily working to insert innocuos-sounding language that really means something entirely different.
This isn’t exactly wrong, but I think it’s an excessively pessimistic take. Legislation isn’t written by the actual elected officials, it’s written by staffers, so there’s typically an additional...
The companies involved all donate to their favorite politicians, who then use corporate feedback when crafting applicable laws. Which would be fine if everyone was agreed that the purpose of the laws was to protect people - but the laws wouldn't be needed if that was true.
This isn’t exactly wrong, but I think it’s an excessively pessimistic take. Legislation isn’t written by the actual elected officials, it’s written by staffers, so there’s typically an additional layer between the corporations and the people writing the legislation. And while there are obvious, critical flaws in that system, finding a better alternative is much harder than it sounds. It’s not possible for any legislator, no matter how intelligent and no matter how motivated, to completely understand the fundaments of any given issue that might crop up. And I think it’s worth asking whether we’d actually want things to be that way - having a system like that would ensure that only technocrats with niche knowledge could get elected. So legislators have to rely on staffers, lobbyists, and companies because while they all have interests, they also are, very often, the only ones who do actually understand the issues in question. Do we want this guy passing laws on AI without assistance? (The link is the clip of a Georgia representative being worried about Guam tipping over).
Combined with all of this, I think it’s more difficult to write legislation without loopholes than you might imagine. It’s also not necessarily a good idea. Slack in a system is always, always a good thing. Here’s a dumb example: jaywalking is illegal almost everywhere, right? But we don’t actually want that law to be enforced without exception. The slack in our system allows for a better outcome than we would have if the law was rigidly written and rigidly applied.
None of this is to say that the American system is unimpeachable or can’t be criticized. Again, there are obvious, critical flaws. I just think that it’s important to understand that this is a complex system and so the criticism should be (IMO) equally nuanced.
When they were trying to roll out state-wide broadband in New Jersey a decade or two ago, the state sought feedback from the corporations on what was reasonable to include….
To be fair, this is all about a RFP (request for proposal) process, not law. Very different things, and getting feedback from the entities who will be bidding is standard practice.
That’s an interesting story, and maybe there is more to be learned with more details. (I wonder what else was in the contract?) For a contract worth that much money, there need to be some pretty...
That’s an interesting story, and maybe there is more to be learned with more details. (I wonder what else was in the contract?)
For a contract worth that much money, there need to be some pretty sharp lawyers on both sides. I don’t see any alternatives, do you?
Yea Verizon deserves to have that buildout seized by the municipalities for that particular rugpull. Bring those profitable high-density connections back under state coffers and let them finish...
Yea Verizon deserves to have that buildout seized by the municipalities for that particular rugpull.
Bring those profitable high-density connections back under state coffers and let them finish what Verizon snaked out of.
In a gross over-simplification, I was wondering what it would be like if we switched to a “do this” style of rules and regulations instead of a “don’t do this”. Parking regulations is a “simple”...
In a gross over-simplification, I was wondering what it would be like if we switched to a “do this” style of rules and regulations instead of a “don’t do this”.
Parking regulations is a “simple” example. Tell me when I can park here instead of when I can’t.
But I agree with you, it’s a grey area for some topics.
When there are more than two lines on a parking sign or more than one sign, figuring it out in a city can be frustrating. Some of my streets are available to turn into and drive on during only...
When there are more than two lines on a parking sign or more than one sign, figuring it out in a city can be frustrating. Some of my streets are available to turn into and drive on during only specific hours, as well.
I often have to do some parsing to figure out if I can park there on Sunday for more than 3 minutes.
Here in the Netherlands, it was recognized that a lot of government text and company text are too difficult. Often containing too much domain specific language. In recent years, there has been a...
Here in the Netherlands, it was recognized that a lot of government text and company text are too difficult. Often containing too much domain specific language. In recent years, there has been a push to change this, write text in more understandable language and more accessible word usage.
This doesn't mean that rules and regulations are simplified, necessarily. But, a lot of the supporting text on websites is. Not that things here are perfect, but at least there is a growing awareness here.
And writing rules that others cannot comprehend ensure the writer(s) near maximum freedom to game those rules. That is, until someone else finds an unintended consequence in those rules to game....
And writing rules that others cannot comprehend ensure the writer(s) near maximum freedom to game those rules.
That is, until someone else finds an unintended consequence in those rules to game.
Half baked idea: What if we had laws that had to have less than 100 words, or 500, or whatever is short enough that millions of voters will be willing to read the whole thing through. But, you...
Half baked idea:
What if we had laws that had to have less than 100 words, or 500, or whatever is short enough that millions of voters will be willing to read the whole thing through.
But, you could have unlimited footnotes assigned to each word defining and adding context and logistical guidelines. These sections could be written at whatever reading level and length necessary to be precise.
The main text though, would have to at least make sense without the foot notes, and convey the true impact of the benefits and drawbacks of the law bill in laymen's terms.
The bill could be available online with links on the notes, like a wiki.
A lot of academic and other “intellectual” writing often feels like an arms race where the target is to preempt as many questions and counter arguments as possible. It’s why the pre-amble is so...
A lot of academic and other “intellectual” writing often feels like an arms race where the target is to preempt as many questions and counter arguments as possible.
It’s why the pre-amble is so long before they get to the point “let me justify why I’m about to tell you what I’m about to tell you” followed by “this is my point” followed by “I have already thought about your counter argument and here is my counter argument.”
All of which amounts to the massive word counts and lengthy and convoluted sentence structures. Jargon and acronyms, ironically, in their quest to make things less bulky, just add to the mess and further leave the lay person in the dust.
What I’m more afraid of, however, is how far it leaves professionals in the dust. I have met many doctors that have a very limited, if any, understanding of genetics and how it impacts pharmacology, for example. Based on their usage of terminology and other things, I doubt they have understood what they are espousing.
I always feel bad about not finishing news articles, but they drift off on tangents, I have things to do, and I lose patience. I suspect the tangents are deliberate - make more space for...
I always feel bad about not finishing news articles, but they drift off on tangents, I have things to do, and I lose patience. I suspect the tangents are deliberate - make more space for advertising.
What I’m more afraid of, however, is how far it leaves professionals in the dust. I have met many doctors that have a very limited, if any, understanding of genetics and how it impacts pharmacology, for example. Based on their usage of terminology and other things, I doubt they have understood what they are espousing.
Scary.
I can't imagine being an MD, putting in a very full day, and then sitting down with very dense reading in the evening.
So this is probably a result of a common style of writing in news journalism called the "Inverted Pyramid" where you frontload the most important information (the "who, what, where, when, and why)...
I always feel bad about not finishing news articles, but they drift off on tangents, I have things to do, and I lose patience.
So this is probably a result of a common style of writing in news journalism called the "Inverted Pyramid" where you frontload the most important information (the "who, what, where, when, and why) in the opening paragraphs of the article, follow with details of the story, and end with background. It means that less critical information can be placed below the fold (in the days of actual newspapers) or edited out for space if needed. So it's not all that odd that you might lose interest in a news story written in this style before you get to the end, because you've probably gotten all of the pertinent info already (unless the writer has "buried the lede", i.e. placed the most critical piece of information further down the story).
Fair point regarding jargon and intended audience of academic writing. Though I still feel hyper specificity can be limiting even within a field. edit I also feel the public has a right to...
Fair point regarding jargon and intended audience of academic writing. Though I still feel hyper specificity can be limiting even within a field. edit I also feel the public has a right to understand and read the works of the authors they have funded, so while journal articles are mostly for academic peers, they should appeal in some capacity to laypeople. Which some articles do as a summary or big picture overview. Simplification of a concept is a demonstration of mastery.
To point 2, I think physicians have some knowledge of genetics that is applicable to their schooling, but not their practice. For example, a physician struggled to tell me how a SNP (single nucleotide repeat) would affect pharmacology of drugs and drug choice and failed to be able to explain to me how we can use my personal genetic data to make informed drug choices. The best I got was “some people have different genes that make it so that certain drugs won’t work very well on them.”
I concede this may or may not have to do with academic writing.
Regarding physicians, it’s long been my outsider’s observation that the long chains of science prerequisites in the standard pre-med curriculum are largely wasted. By the time they’re relevant in...
Regarding physicians, it’s long been my outsider’s observation that the long chains of science prerequisites in the standard pre-med curriculum are largely wasted. By the time they’re relevant in clinical practice, even a student who was more interested in learning than earning an A would have forgotten (or “that’s why the pharmacist earned her PharmD”).
Knowledge should translate to clinical practices through review articles and CEU classes, not from doctors reading raw research after work. There’s a place for that, but it’s utterly delusional to expect that to be standard practice.
I write articles for a company website and take pride in making them easy to understand without a technical background. But now I want to see what grade level my articles come in at. It requires...
I write articles for a company website and take pride in making them easy to understand without a technical background. But now I want to see what grade level my articles come in at.
It requires skill and creativity to express complex ideas at a reading level that is not only accessible, but engaging, for most readers. But it is depressing that so many Americans lack the ability to parse more advanced works.
I had a reading level a few years beyond my grade when I was in high school. It has been so long since I have been a regular reader of serious stuff I would be afraid to get tested again.
I had a reading level a few years beyond my grade when I was in high school. It has been so long since I have been a regular reader of serious stuff I would be afraid to get tested again.
I know what you mean! I enjoy seeking out reading material that is more challenging than usual to keep the brain engaged. But heavy reading is cyclical for me and I feel it when I'm coming off of...
I know what you mean! I enjoy seeking out reading material that is more challenging than usual to keep the brain engaged. But heavy reading is cyclical for me and I feel it when I'm coming off of a break. I see greater benefits when I read to study and learn, not just for pleasure.
Also, while audiobooks are books, I tend to think that people who heavily rely on them don't develop the same analytical skills that visual readers do. But I am also one who absolutely cannot get into an audiobook, so there is some bias. 😅
An old article. Still true. Still with some great points to make. Deliberately easy to read which makes an ironic point. Short article too. More than half of American adults read on a sixth grade...
An old article. Still true. Still with some great points to make. Deliberately easy to read which makes an ironic point. Short article too.
More than half of American adults read on a sixth grade reading level.
The author implies that legislation, corporate documentation, and some academic writings are deliberately written on much higher reading levels as a passive aggressive way to keep Americans from reading those things.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Legislatures, corporate document-writers and academics are so steeped in their respective fields forget how jargon-dense they...
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Legislatures, corporate document-writers and academics are so steeped in their respective fields forget how jargon-dense they actually are. It takes training and work to communicate clearly with everyone, and many professionals are terrible at it. This is precisely why people like LegalEagle, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and other media personalities exist: to translate from professional speak to common language.
As somebody who writes for but not in academica, I'll agree to the incompetence part. Oftentimes, academics approach a manuscript of any sort with the objective of it being comprehensive, not...
As somebody who writes for but not in academica, I'll agree to the incompetence part. Oftentimes, academics approach a manuscript of any sort with the objective of it being comprehensive, not legible.
Just as we're taught to explain subjects from beginning to end in our college term papers, academics explore a topic exhaustively in their news-y writing and for the reader, it's exhausting.
Somewhat relevant to this, as someone who used to assist research managers by reviewing and creating performance appraisals, some people's brains just work differently. The whole book smart vs...
Somewhat relevant to this, as someone who used to assist research managers by reviewing and creating performance appraisals, some people's brains just work differently. The whole book smart vs street smart kind of thing along combined with becoming a product of their environment. For example, a critical element might look like,
"All data entry completed within 2 days of receiving reports from the PI (Principal Investigator). In order to be Fully Successful in this element, there must be not more than 3 failed instances of data entry within the 2 day period. In order to be rated Exceeds Expectations, there must be not more than 1 failed instance of data entry within the 2 day period."
I've received some drafts that try to account for every scenario such as, If there is an acting manager for more than 50% of the employee's work hours, then the requirements allow for 5 instances or if an employee works OT the prior week, then they are granted 4 days vs 2.
I explain to just follow SMART goals, and be reasonable. You then have some room to work with for those that are failing, those doing their job as expected, and those who are superstars. It's black and white with a bit of grey to move within.
IMO, that example you gave is a product of people who petulantly insist on paragraphs instead of flowcharts. Decision trees are not best represented in linear strings of text.
IMO, that example you gave is a product of people who petulantly insist on paragraphs instead of flowcharts. Decision trees are not best represented in linear strings of text.
I wonder why the string people insist on this when they too would probably prefer a chart or a table. My bet is that writing it is faster and fuck the audience for asking for anything different ;)
I wonder why the string people insist on this when they too would probably prefer a chart or a table.
My bet is that writing it is faster and fuck the audience for asking for anything different ;)
I know the title is the original one, thought up by the author. But, it doesn't feel complete. In the article, they go into one other aspect of this. A lot of text out there is simply too...
I know the title is the original one, thought up by the author. But, it doesn't feel complete. In the article, they go into one other aspect of this. A lot of text out there is simply too difficult to read. Even if your reading level is well above average. Reading complex text simply costs more energy and attention to detail.
Here in the Netherlands, it was recognized that a lot of government text and company text are too difficult. Often containing too much domain specific language. In recent years, there has been a push to change this, write text in more understandable language and more accessible word usage.
This doesn't mean that rules and regulations are simplified, necessarily. But, a lot of the supporting text on websites is. Not that things here are perfect, but at least there is a growing awareness here.
Some other things I am curious about:
Is there any historical data? Is the reading level of people in the US in decline? Or is it relatively stable?
Is it just the US where this is an issue? I know part of the answer, reading comprehension is a sore point in the Netherlands as well. Now I am wondering if it is the same in other (western) countries.
Not a great title, there are few illiterate people in the USA. The article is about the literacy level being low, they can still read the words even if they don't understand them. With a...
Not a great title, there are few illiterate people in the USA. The article is about the literacy level being low, they can still read the words even if they don't understand them. With a dictionary they may even understand. Overall reading isn't far from science, both are far lower than they should be for a country that you would think would have top scores.
Math is worse than reading or science, we really need to force those in charge to do better. As it is, we're just getting dumber. Kids are not held back, nor are they helped to catch up. The covid generation is screwed, still far behind where they should be.
We can always try to do better, but I don't see any way around it for things like building codes, regulations, and legal contracts. Simple rules have lots of loopholes and grey areas. They will be gamed.
IMHO trying to do better would be to bring up the reading levels of most Americans.
The reintroduction of phonics to most American schools should help with that over the long-term! Literacy rate statistics are also a bit skewed by the number of immigrants in America.
I do worry that we're going to shift too far in the other direction. We're already seeing schools teach very few full length books. Purely phonics based education means even less exposure to real (not highly controlled vocabulary) books in the early grades as well. Without good stories as a reward, reading could end up being a miserable slog.
The sane way to deal with this is to have large parts of the curriculum be teacher read aloud of high quality literature, but I don't trust modern curriculum designers focused on a checklist of two dozen "skills" to allot time for that...
Phonics can absolutely still accompany reading actual stories in school, and there's nothing about the alternative approaches that means they'd be exposed to more reading or a wider variety. If anything, phonics would need less heavy control of the vocabulary in books than approaches that rely on learning "sight words".
My kid's program is phonics-first, reading interterest second, sight words third.
They specifically focus on small words first for sight words (I, it, is, the, etc), so that they can focus on the phonetic approach on larger words. It helps speed up that initial curve so that they can start building interest faster.
I think most of those very common small words serve as exceptions to the phonics rules they'd need to learn anyway, so that makes sense. Even in a system that teaches phonics, you have to grapple with a lot of nonsense in the English writing system that's not super phonetic.
I know they can, I've just seen enough teachers talking about absolutely absurd reading curriculums that I don't trust that they will.
Mediation is necessary in all things - - a strong and systemic basis in phonics is necessary for around half of readers. But phonics are also a list of boring rules, so if it's focused on to the exclusion of enough good literature, you'll end up with kids who can decode, but never get enough practice to do read effortlessly without needing to decode, because they hate it.
That said, to be clear, phonics are vital. Using a phonics based approach just means that curriculum should consider building interest as a vital concern and not a secondary one, like I suspect many curriculums do.
What that might look like is even in a boxed curriculum that normally specifies all literature, allowing teachers to regularly (meaning multiple times a week) choose high interest books for their particular class and spend significant time reading them aloud.
I think you're severely underestimating how much boring nonsense that turned kids off reading was part of the system without phonics. My younger siblings learned such a system, and there was a lot of testing them on how quickly they could read a list of sight words in isolation (that is, not even part of a larger text, much less one that interested them) out loud. The amount of time spent on bullshit like that more than makes up for any time spent on learning the rules of phonics. There's plenty of boring stuff in the old approach that learning phonics can replace without any change in the amount of pleasurable reading.
Actually reading stories they enjoy and are interested in is an incredibly important aspect of the curriculum for getting children to actually care about and understand what they read, but its presence or absence is orthogonal from whether a phonics-based approach is what's used to teach kids to read.
My kid is going through the new early phonics program. Is now in 2nd grade. The curriculum, best I can tell, is largely reading-first, with only a small fraction of that being 'the boring stuff.'
Right now their reading level is mostly not constrained by their ability to read words, but rather finding stories at a sufficient level of complexity that they find interesting.
So, at least for good school districts, that's what they're doing.
Slightly off topic but still notable: this creates a related problem in advanced readers in 5th grade or so. What happens is the intellectually interesting books are too advanced socially and emotionally, and can create emotional health problems.
can you elaborate? i did not notice this in my agemates then
I can only speak from my experience amd that of my kids. My amygdala and limbic system were bot ready for the emotions associated with cruelty and existential dread of teen stuff at age 9 and 10. The violence isn’t a big deal and most of the sex, but themes like betrayal, abandonment, meaninglessness, these left me and especially my daughter very anxious and mistrustful.
I mean maybe I was an exception, but I was reading college level books by the end of elementary school without issue.
Saw a quote somewhere about half of GenX's mental problems are due to too-early exposure to Stephen King.
I got a chuckle out of that one.
I didn't notice that; what I have noticed is going back to books for adults that I loved as a kid and noticing how much subtext I entirely missed in the early readings.
That's excellent to hear, but yeah it's not the "good" (high income) schools that I worry about. Most of those kids would have learned to read even with Lucy Calkins and nothing else. It's the places where for most kids, the only read aloud they get is at school, and teachers are under far more pressure to follow inappropriately fast paced curriculum with fidelity - - the first things that are going to be cut for time is the leisure reading.
The problem is that a lot of 'high literature' is utterly boring, especially the earlier in the program.
Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy kid have done far more to build reading skills.
I don't think programs at the age where kids are still learning phonics typically focus on anything like "high literature" anyway. At least in my experience, programs for very young children like that DO focus on learning to read whatever the child enjoys, with the switch to only reading "literature" happening somewhat abruptly later on.
I'm in absolute agreement. For independent reading, a kid can read a cereal box if that's what they like, and that will help with building a vocabulary of sight words from their decoding.
The author mentioned Alabama as being the worst state for literacy. Does Alabama have a large immigrant population?
You can't ignore the other major factor:
The South has a particularly nasty case of anti-government and anti-intellectualism. My cousins are raising kids in North Carolina and the school programs are abyssal compared to even a very-middling PA district.
Eh, Mississippi has massively improved their reading and educational outcomes, so stranger things can happen: https://apnews.com/article/reading-scores-phonics-mississippi-alabama-louisiana-5bdd5d6ff719b23faa37db2fb95d5004
This is fantastic news, as education is a gateway drug to liberalism. There's a reason Republicans have been waging war against public education for 160+ years.
I heard you can get hooked on phonics.
IMO the advantage of phonics are overstated, or at least the primacy of language learning by phonics. Taiwan and China have excellent reading rates with a non-phonetic language entirely. Japan as well, to a lesser extent.
Chinese is taught phonetically through the use of the phonetic alphabet Pinyin invented in 50s China for the purpose of improving literacy rates and romanizing Chinese, or the older Zhuyin system if you're in Taiwan. I learned Chinese through Zhuyin, sounding words out. Literacy rates in China used to be dismal; now it's almost 100%, which is impressive considering that learning to write and read Chinese is arguably much more difficult than learning to write and read English. (Grammatically, Chinese is actually simpler, funny enough.)
As an outsider to literacy education, it seems a bit funny that Chinese moved to phonics to improve literacy, and now English is moving away from it. Maybe Chinese and English are different enough that paradoxically both approaches can be right, but right now I feel that one is probably wrong.
I know, Chinese was my 0.5th language. But the overall way to learn chinese is very similar to the “sighting” method often decried by phonetic proponents. It’s not like there’s anywhere in the US where the phonetic component is ignored - it is a phonetic language to begin with.
In terms of reading methods, they literally did teach kids to just recognize and guess words based on context. They weren't taught how to sound out words. They taught kids to read as if every word was made up of hanzi with a reading based on context and order of the letters.
I think that it doesn't help to compare learning non-phonetic languages and phonetic ones when you're looking at phonetic learning methods. It seems obvious to me that there'd be a difference, and if I understand the data I've seen, phonics worked a lot better than the emphasis on sight-reading for English.
That's a long term solution, in the sort term a lot can probably be achieved by making many resources more accessible by rewriting them. I just wrote this comment about it.
Updating the legal code and corporate documents sounds like a long term solution too. Especially if the author was correct in thinking those things were intentionally obfuscated.
Updating documents can be started on today and have an immediate impact for those documents that have been updated. Of course, this does assume good faith from the organizations that write these documents in the first place, I agree there.
It will likely take a long time to fully transform all things out there, so it isn't exactly a short term solution either. I do feel like it would take effect sooner than education reforms would.
But, to be very clear, I also think that education should be worked on as well. It is more a "why not both" kind of thing in my mind. Education to raise the overall average, more accessible documents for those people who still will have trouble reading.
The thing is, in modern law I don't think there's really such a thing as a loophole. The companies involved all donate to their favorite politicians, who then use corporate feedback when crafting applicable laws. Which would be fine if everyone was agreed that the purpose of the laws was to protect people - but the laws wouldn't be needed if that was true. So the corporations deliberately push for seemingly-clear-sounding language that includes "loopholes" that they know they'll exploit later on, and the legislators know this but have been paid enough not to question things too closely. And if the corpos can't get enough of what they want, or there's pushback from the legislators, the corpos will astroturf a "citizen's response" to get what they want.
When they were trying to roll out state-wide broadband in New Jersey a decade or two ago, the state sought feedback from the corporations on what was reasonable to include - after all, the corporations knew the technical requirements and stuff best, had been studying it for years and knew what was feasible. So the [?law ?contract] was written with the intent of requiring the winning company/corporation to be legally required to run FiOS to pretty much every household in the state, and Verizon won a (I think) $10,000,000,000 contract to do just that.
And they got right to work on it, wiring all the easy, high-return, high-density areas and some of the county seats, and the state was pretty satisfied - until the roll-out slowed down noticeably a couple years later. So the state went to Verizon and said, "Hey, what's up, you're supposed to be wiring the rest of the state?", and Verizon turned around and said, "Read the [?law ?contract]. Technically, we're only required to wire the county seats of each county in New Jersey, not anything else. We''ll finish the county seats, but otherwise we're good where we are." And that's pretty much exactly what happened.
Any time there's a chance for money to be made, or expenses to be avoided, there's going to be some corporation there, busily working to insert innocuos-sounding language that really means something entirely different.
This isn’t exactly wrong, but I think it’s an excessively pessimistic take. Legislation isn’t written by the actual elected officials, it’s written by staffers, so there’s typically an additional layer between the corporations and the people writing the legislation. And while there are obvious, critical flaws in that system, finding a better alternative is much harder than it sounds. It’s not possible for any legislator, no matter how intelligent and no matter how motivated, to completely understand the fundaments of any given issue that might crop up. And I think it’s worth asking whether we’d actually want things to be that way - having a system like that would ensure that only technocrats with niche knowledge could get elected. So legislators have to rely on staffers, lobbyists, and companies because while they all have interests, they also are, very often, the only ones who do actually understand the issues in question. Do we want this guy passing laws on AI without assistance? (The link is the clip of a Georgia representative being worried about Guam tipping over).
Combined with all of this, I think it’s more difficult to write legislation without loopholes than you might imagine. It’s also not necessarily a good idea. Slack in a system is always, always a good thing. Here’s a dumb example: jaywalking is illegal almost everywhere, right? But we don’t actually want that law to be enforced without exception. The slack in our system allows for a better outcome than we would have if the law was rigidly written and rigidly applied.
None of this is to say that the American system is unimpeachable or can’t be criticized. Again, there are obvious, critical flaws. I just think that it’s important to understand that this is a complex system and so the criticism should be (IMO) equally nuanced.
To be fair, this is all about a RFP (request for proposal) process, not law. Very different things, and getting feedback from the entities who will be bidding is standard practice.
That’s an interesting story, and maybe there is more to be learned with more details. (I wonder what else was in the contract?)
For a contract worth that much money, there need to be some pretty sharp lawyers on both sides. I don’t see any alternatives, do you?
Yea Verizon deserves to have that buildout seized by the municipalities for that particular rugpull.
Bring those profitable high-density connections back under state coffers and let them finish what Verizon snaked out of.
In a gross over-simplification, I was wondering what it would be like if we switched to a “do this” style of rules and regulations instead of a “don’t do this”.
Parking regulations is a “simple” example. Tell me when I can park here instead of when I can’t.
But I agree with you, it’s a grey area for some topics.
When there are more than two lines on a parking sign or more than one sign, figuring it out in a city can be frustrating. Some of my streets are available to turn into and drive on during only specific hours, as well.
I often have to do some parsing to figure out if I can park there on Sunday for more than 3 minutes.
Here in the Netherlands, it was recognized that a lot of government text and company text are too difficult. Often containing too much domain specific language. In recent years, there has been a push to change this, write text in more understandable language and more accessible word usage.
This doesn't mean that rules and regulations are simplified, necessarily. But, a lot of the supporting text on websites is. Not that things here are perfect, but at least there is a growing awareness here.
And writing rules that others cannot comprehend ensure the writer(s) near maximum freedom to game those rules.
That is, until someone else finds an unintended consequence in those rules to game.
And so it goes.
Half baked idea:
What if we had laws that had to have less than 100 words, or 500, or whatever is short enough that millions of voters will be willing to read the whole thing through.
But, you could have unlimited footnotes assigned to each word defining and adding context and logistical guidelines. These sections could be written at whatever reading level and length necessary to be precise.
The main text though, would have to at least make sense without the foot notes, and convey the true impact of the benefits and drawbacks of the law bill in laymen's terms.
The bill could be available online with links on the notes, like a wiki.
We have something a little like this in California, for the summary that appears on the ballot for propositions. But the details do matter.
A lot of academic and other “intellectual” writing often feels like an arms race where the target is to preempt as many questions and counter arguments as possible.
It’s why the pre-amble is so long before they get to the point “let me justify why I’m about to tell you what I’m about to tell you” followed by “this is my point” followed by “I have already thought about your counter argument and here is my counter argument.”
All of which amounts to the massive word counts and lengthy and convoluted sentence structures. Jargon and acronyms, ironically, in their quest to make things less bulky, just add to the mess and further leave the lay person in the dust.
What I’m more afraid of, however, is how far it leaves professionals in the dust. I have met many doctors that have a very limited, if any, understanding of genetics and how it impacts pharmacology, for example. Based on their usage of terminology and other things, I doubt they have understood what they are espousing.
I always feel bad about not finishing news articles, but they drift off on tangents, I have things to do, and I lose patience. I suspect the tangents are deliberate - make more space for advertising.
Scary.
I can't imagine being an MD, putting in a very full day, and then sitting down with very dense reading in the evening.
So this is probably a result of a common style of writing in news journalism called the "Inverted Pyramid" where you frontload the most important information (the "who, what, where, when, and why) in the opening paragraphs of the article, follow with details of the story, and end with background. It means that less critical information can be placed below the fold (in the days of actual newspapers) or edited out for space if needed. So it's not all that odd that you might lose interest in a news story written in this style before you get to the end, because you've probably gotten all of the pertinent info already (unless the writer has "buried the lede", i.e. placed the most critical piece of information further down the story).
Fair point regarding jargon and intended audience of academic writing. Though I still feel hyper specificity can be limiting even within a field. edit I also feel the public has a right to understand and read the works of the authors they have funded, so while journal articles are mostly for academic peers, they should appeal in some capacity to laypeople. Which some articles do as a summary or big picture overview. Simplification of a concept is a demonstration of mastery.
To point 2, I think physicians have some knowledge of genetics that is applicable to their schooling, but not their practice. For example, a physician struggled to tell me how a SNP (single nucleotide repeat) would affect pharmacology of drugs and drug choice and failed to be able to explain to me how we can use my personal genetic data to make informed drug choices. The best I got was “some people have different genes that make it so that certain drugs won’t work very well on them.”
I concede this may or may not have to do with academic writing.
Regarding physicians, it’s long been my outsider’s observation that the long chains of science prerequisites in the standard pre-med curriculum are largely wasted. By the time they’re relevant in clinical practice, even a student who was more interested in learning than earning an A would have forgotten (or “that’s why the pharmacist earned her PharmD”).
Knowledge should translate to clinical practices through review articles and CEU classes, not from doctors reading raw research after work. There’s a place for that, but it’s utterly delusional to expect that to be standard practice.
I write articles for a company website and take pride in making them easy to understand without a technical background. But now I want to see what grade level my articles come in at.
It requires skill and creativity to express complex ideas at a reading level that is not only accessible, but engaging, for most readers. But it is depressing that so many Americans lack the ability to parse more advanced works.
I had a reading level a few years beyond my grade when I was in high school. It has been so long since I have been a regular reader of serious stuff I would be afraid to get tested again.
I know what you mean! I enjoy seeking out reading material that is more challenging than usual to keep the brain engaged. But heavy reading is cyclical for me and I feel it when I'm coming off of a break. I see greater benefits when I read to study and learn, not just for pleasure.
Also, while audiobooks are books, I tend to think that people who heavily rely on them don't develop the same analytical skills that visual readers do. But I am also one who absolutely cannot get into an audiobook, so there is some bias. 😅
An old article. Still true. Still with some great points to make. Deliberately easy to read which makes an ironic point. Short article too.
More than half of American adults read on a sixth grade reading level.
The author implies that legislation, corporate documentation, and some academic writings are deliberately written on much higher reading levels as a passive aggressive way to keep Americans from reading those things.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. Legislatures, corporate document-writers and academics are so steeped in their respective fields forget how jargon-dense they actually are. It takes training and work to communicate clearly with everyone, and many professionals are terrible at it. This is precisely why people like LegalEagle, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and other media personalities exist: to translate from professional speak to common language.
As somebody who writes for but not in academica, I'll agree to the incompetence part. Oftentimes, academics approach a manuscript of any sort with the objective of it being comprehensive, not legible.
Just as we're taught to explain subjects from beginning to end in our college term papers, academics explore a topic exhaustively in their news-y writing and for the reader, it's exhausting.
Somewhat relevant to this, as someone who used to assist research managers by reviewing and creating performance appraisals, some people's brains just work differently. The whole book smart vs street smart kind of thing along combined with becoming a product of their environment. For example, a critical element might look like,
"All data entry completed within 2 days of receiving reports from the PI (Principal Investigator). In order to be Fully Successful in this element, there must be not more than 3 failed instances of data entry within the 2 day period. In order to be rated Exceeds Expectations, there must be not more than 1 failed instance of data entry within the 2 day period."
I've received some drafts that try to account for every scenario such as, If there is an acting manager for more than 50% of the employee's work hours, then the requirements allow for 5 instances or if an employee works OT the prior week, then they are granted 4 days vs 2.
I explain to just follow SMART goals, and be reasonable. You then have some room to work with for those that are failing, those doing their job as expected, and those who are superstars. It's black and white with a bit of grey to move within.
IMO, that example you gave is a product of people who petulantly insist on paragraphs instead of flowcharts. Decision trees are not best represented in linear strings of text.
I wonder why the string people insist on this when they too would probably prefer a chart or a table.
My bet is that writing it is faster and fuck the audience for asking for anything different ;)
Or it's tradition (excuse me, has proven precedent)
I know the title is the original one, thought up by the author. But, it doesn't feel complete. In the article, they go into one other aspect of this. A lot of text out there is simply too difficult to read. Even if your reading level is well above average. Reading complex text simply costs more energy and attention to detail.
Here in the Netherlands, it was recognized that a lot of government text and company text are too difficult. Often containing too much domain specific language. In recent years, there has been a push to change this, write text in more understandable language and more accessible word usage.
This doesn't mean that rules and regulations are simplified, necessarily. But, a lot of the supporting text on websites is. Not that things here are perfect, but at least there is a growing awareness here.
Some other things I am curious about:
Not a great title, there are few illiterate people in the USA. The article is about the literacy level being low, they can still read the words even if they don't understand them. With a dictionary they may even understand. Overall reading isn't far from science, both are far lower than they should be for a country that you would think would have top scores.
Math is worse than reading or science, we really need to force those in charge to do better. As it is, we're just getting dumber. Kids are not held back, nor are they helped to catch up. The covid generation is screwed, still far behind where they should be.