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#literacy
ryan-sometimes · 1 day
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So I’m minoring in science education, and in one of my education seminars, we’re discussing the Gen Alpha literacy crisis. In the past few years teen literacy has been declining, and it’s now estimated that about 1/4 of teenagers cannot interpret basic texts. I just finished a middle school teaching internship, and the majority of my students weren’t reading at grade level.
While researching this issue, I've come across so many Millennial parents talking about how their kids don't read at all and asking how they could get their children to read more. "My child hasn't read a book in years, what do I do?!"
They talked about everything from private tutors to homeschooling, taking away devices, talking about how schools are garbage... And I feel like they're ignoring the most obvious answer, which is that they themselves don't read!
How do you expect your child to read books when you yourself don't read any? You need to model the behavior you want for your child. Your child doesn't think reading is important because they've never seen you read. And so, when you tell them reading is important, they just don't believe you.
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sl8tersstuff · 2 days
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This isn’t how it’s supposed to be
but this is how it is.
And it’s not your fault,
or mine,
it just is.
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vergess · 1 year
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Quick question, genuine question:
Why on earth does "more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level" not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?
Are the implications of it unclear????
I'm serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!
If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!
If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.
This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!
Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????
I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I'm completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.
ETA: This post continues here, with citations
ETA 2: There's a tag on my blog now; it's simply #literacy. You can click it at the bottom of this post to view on mobile, or click here for desktop.
ETA 3: Stop saying children are being manipulated on purpose. That's how you get conspiracy theories. This entire situation is just a serious of bad decisions, not a nefarious plot. Focus on the real problem if we want real solutions.
ETA 4: PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE THE SOLUTION NOT THE PROBLEM, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? I mean you can't read, obviously. I just said that. But holy SHIT.
ETA 5: I have begun compiling a list of resources, including at least some practice books at each difficulty level. Check the tag "reading resources" on my blog by clicking it below.
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ebookporn · 4 months
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LeVar Burton Is Still Fighting For Your Right to Read
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In an age of unprecedented book bans, the actor and literacy advocate is going to the mat for the freedom to read. "America loves to live in the shadows," he says, "but we're living in an age when the truth wants to come out."
by Adrienne Westenfeld
Nearly two decades after PBS’s long-running series went off the air, the Reading Rainbow generation is all grown up. Their love of reading and knowledge is an enduring gift, courtesy of host LeVar Burton and the show’s producers—but in an age of unprecedented assaults on the freedom to read, what’s to become of today’s young readers in the making? As ever, Burton is looking out for them. The actor and literacy advocate recently served as the honorary chair of Banned Books Week, an annual October event dedicated to raising awareness about attempts to remove reading materials from libraries, schools, and bookstores. Now, he’s making his second appearance as the host of the National Book Awards, where “censorship” will no doubt be the word on every honoree’s lips. “I've put in work in this field; I've put in time on these issues,” Burton told Esquire. “I'm happy to be the face of it and represent it, because these are matters that I care deeply about.”
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Great interview, worth the read.
"The whole idea of Americans being in control of their own bodies, their own minds, and their own destinies is a political issue, which is weird, given the fundamental underpinnings of the creation of this nation. But here we are, having this conversation about bodily autonomy, what kids should read, and what we should think. For me, it's a fight worth fighting. It's not only a conversation worth having. It's a fight worth fighting... The fight for reproductive freedom is tied to the effort to ban books. They're definitely linked. What we're looking at is authoritarian control, and that's just not part of the charter."
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randimason · 2 months
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@neil-gaiman receiving the the Visionary Award at The Art of Elysium’s 2024 Heaven Gala, January 6, 2024
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lonepower · 1 year
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my dad and I just finished listening to a fascinating (and really pretty alarming) podcast about American literacy education recently—Sold a Story by Emily Hanford—and it got me wondering what my peers’ experience was, so here's my first poll! This pertains to people who learned to read in the U.S. specifically, so even if one of the other options matches your experience, I'd politely ask you to refrain from picking one (presumably you guys have better school districts than we do anyway). 
(the most horrifying part out of the entire thing was the fact that dubbya was the one to realize something was wrong. even a broken clock, I guess...?)
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incognitopolls · 5 months
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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.
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renthony · 16 days
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From the article:
Should we worry, as massive book-banning efforts imply, that young people will be harmed by certain kinds of books? For over a decade and through hundreds of interviews, my colleague, literacy professor Peter Johnston, and I have studied how adolescents experience reading when they have unfettered access to young adult literature. Our findings suggest that many are helped rather than harmed by such reading. For one study, we spent a year in a public middle school in a small, mid-Atlantic town, observing and talking to eighth grade students whose teachers, rather than assigning the “classics” or traditional academic texts, let students choose what to read and gave them time to read daily in class. To support student engagement, they made available hundreds of contemporary books that are relevant to the students’ lives. The books included many of the titles currently being challenged, according to PEN America, which is a nonprofit that advocates against censorship, among other things. The titles include Ellen Hopkins’ “Identical,” Jay Asher’s “Thirteen Reasons Why,” Patricia McCormick’s “Sold,” and others that were banned because of themes of sex and violence. We were interested in what the students perceived to be the consequences of reading young adult literature. They tended to read books they described as “disturbing.” At the end of the school year, we interviewed 71 of the students about changes in their reading and relationships with peers and family. We also asked open-ended questions about how, if at all, they had changed as people since the beginning of the year. Beyond reading substantially more than they had previously, they reported positive changes in their social, emotional and intellectual lives that they attributed to reading, the kinds of books they read and the conversations those books provoked. Here are six ways students told us they had been changed by reading and talking about edgy young adult books.
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dovesndecay · 28 days
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The reason you hate reading is because the ruling class benefits from illiteracy. Not total illiteracy, mind you. That’s bad for business. The ruling class (law and policy makers, oligarch businessmen, celebrity, hedge fund managers buying up single-family housing, etc.) want you literate enough to be able to work for them, but not so literate that you realize how badly the working class gets fucked over in this world-making. Read enough to be able to consume and to execute, not to consider critically, certainly not enough to create. Because then what? A mass of people realizing we can create and recreate everything we see and touch to something kinder for us? Ghastly. Absolutely not.
Please go read or listen to Ismatu Gwendolyn's essay.
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luulapants · 2 years
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things you should know about books and incarceration
I recently started working with a program that sends books to incarcerated people upon request. There are programs like this in many places throughout the US, under names like “Prison Books Project” or “Books to Prisoners.” Here’s some things you should know:
The most requested book, by far, is the English dictionary. The Spanish dictionary is also highly requested, as are GED prep materials, thesauruses, almanacs, and other reference books. If you have anything like that laying around unused, please consider donating.
Prisons are legally required to maintain libraries of legal resources (this falls under one’s right to counsel), but otherwise generally do not fund or maintain libraries, even for basic educational materials. The law libraries are also often filled with irrelevant law texts (e.g. real estate and civil procedures) instead of what prisoners actually need information about: appeals, civil rights, etc.
There are strict requirements on what books can and cannot be received, which vary from prison to prison and even depending on which staff member is processing the shipments. There are a thousand different reasons prison staff can pull a book from a shipment. Individuals, unfamiliar with the complex restrictions, are often unsuccessful at sending books to incarcerated loved ones.
Prison staff often don’t like prison book programs, despite the fact that they reduce recidivism and keep prisoners occupied and out of trouble. Why? Because it makes more work for them in the mail room. Yes, really.
Immigrants are the fastest growing prison population, so we get lots of requests for books in Spanish or English learning materials. Unfortunately, these are less frequently donated, so our selection is slim.
We also get requests for books about sign language, usually from people with Deaf cellmates who have no other way to communicate.
Books about starting businesses, trades, and reintroduction are extremely common from those planning their lives after release. It’s extremely difficult for convicted felons to find work after release.
We also get many requests about psychology or self-help books. A large percentage of our incarcerated population suffer from some mental illness or have loved ones who do.
Many prisoners were not properly supported in their education. We receive letters from low-literacy people who have severe learning disabilities, whose letters are difficult to read because they never learned to write properly. Comic books/manga are common requests from low-literacy people because they can look at the pictures.
Prison book programs are usually not well funded and must ration how often incarcerated people can write us and how often they can request certain types of high-demand books. Volunteers frequently find there are no suitable books to fill a request and buy books with their own money to make sure someone gets what they’ve asked for. Cash donations to prison book programs will go to buying high-demand books such as dictionaries, GED prep, and other basic education texts.
See if you have a program like this in your area, and consider volunteering or donating books or money. There are over 2 million people incarcerated in the US, and giving them access to books is the very least we can do.
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"Introduced late last week by Massachusetts Congressional Representative Ayanna Pressley, the four part bill is one of the first to directly address book bans on the national level. Where “Fight Book Bans” would open up money for school districts to fight book challenges, Books Save Lives goes even further to ensure that students have access not only to material but to trained librarians in their school libraries. It would also classify book bans as a violation of Federal Civil Rights–this ties right into the arguments being made in a wealth of lawsuits across the country that seek to end discriminatory policies and laws that infringe on First and Fourteenth Amendment Rights."
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ardent-reflections · 8 months
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I disappeared into books when I was very young, disappeared into them like someone running into the woods.
Rebecca Solnit
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sl8tersstuff · 12 days
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I live my life in a constant state of grief of what I did, what I didn’t do, and what I can never do.
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words-at-night · 11 months
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ebookporn · 5 months
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Breathing
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longreads · 1 year
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When you look up the key features of a civilization, most historians agree that a group of people must implement a system of writing in order to be “civilized.” Reading makes us human.
But what if I told you that humans were never meant to read in the first place? Our brains come hard-wired with the ability to hear and speak language (from a place called Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe) and the ability to understand and remember symbols (the parietal lobe). There is no specific area in the brain that is meant to read; that’s why children have to be taught to read, and why some people have an easier time learning than others. Every time a reader starts a new story, they are taking advantage of a system that is both brand-new and generations in the making. As humans evolved, our brains learned to combine the use of multiple regions and a process called neuronal recycling to “repurpose” the skills we already have. It’s a miracle.
Reading a new book, learning a new language, and even speaking our own language to communicate with friends and loved ones are the results of a multifaceted, living system. Learning that reading and writing are far from natural changed the way I read my favorite books. As a writer, I can treat myself with more patience knowing the lengths to which my brain has gone so I have the chance to write anything at all. As a reader, I value every word more knowing that it has traveled through countless geographical locations and definitions so it can hold that exact spot in one specific sentence.
Ever wonder what goes on in your brain when you read? Our latest reading list by Melanie Hamon is a real thinker!
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