Talk:Literacy in the United States

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2022 and 17 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jwbeaman (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Alison2813.

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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)