In class on Thursday, Professor Vee gave us a sheet that covered some statistics on literacy in 1992 and again in 2003. We discussed some things about how the percentage of people in the “below basic” literacy rating decreased, but the percentage of people in the “proficient” literacy rating also decreased. The number of people classified as “intermediate” increased.
What do you think is a potential cause of this trend and what is one solution you think would help that problem?
For example, access to public education for all students would explain the lower amounts of below basic ratings, but the standardized curriculum could also cause lower ratings of proficient literacy. To resolve this problem, perhaps vary the curriculum in schools and focus them on what main literacy standards are expected nationwide.
I believe this trend could be because of the surge in literacy on electronic devices. This would explain why the below basic group decreased because of the accessibility to help and lessons. Another reason, which is more likely, people probably felt the need to learn to navigate websites and computers because of changes in the job market, and literacy is/was mandatory in these tasks.
As for why the proficient group decreased I am also going to blame computers. With things like Facebook and twitter making formal and elevated conversation almost taboo informal reading and writing has become the norm in our society. When people take formal or standard English tests their constant writing and reading of Facebook and twitter could actually hurt their results.
This of course all comes down to how the stats we looked at were tested, and what classifies someone as each category. However, whatever the test was there is no question that personal computers and social media have effected our nations literacy, and even language.
I think this is actually quite and interesting question. I agree with Mints opinions that the surge in electronic device usage could be a cause for the both the decrease in below basic literacy as well as the decrease in the proficient group. I agree with the dialect that people use on Facebook and Twitter could be a cause for lower scores on formalized literacy tests.
However I would like to play a little bit of devils advocate to the question. Could the decrease in proficient literacy also be because the tests have not adapted to the changing literacy in our culture. For example I don’t think that the literacy that people use on Facebook and Twitter is all a bad thing. For example many jobs have been created because of websites like Facebook, Twitter and Imgur. It is helpful for the employees of those websites to be able to communicate in the dialect of their users. I would be interested to know how an employee like that would do if they were to take a standardized literacy test. Would they possibly be considered less literate even though they have formed their success with non traditional forms of literacy?