Literacy is like a tomato. Do you say “tomaeto” or “tomahto”? Just as either says tomato, the concept of literacy has different definitions for the same word. Some of these definitions technically apply yet are not adequate measures of what it means to be literate in today’s parlance. So, what is the big deal about literacy? Is being literate critical to adult life? Given how much information adults are exposed to every day, can we expect adults with varying levels of literacy skills to effectively consider and understand the constant barrage of information? The answer is “no,” yet our world ultimately spins on the voices and decisions of under-literate adults.
Literacy is a status.
Literacy historically is a status based upon measures of reading and writing. As a statistic, “High literacy rates have been found to correlate to everything from access to economic opportunity, to better nutrition, to environmental sustainability.” We generalize that citizens of economically advantaged nations have high literacy rates and citizens of underdeveloped nations have low literacy rates. A nation boasted its high literacy rate as a cause-and-effect proposition. “Our people enjoy a better standard of living because they are literate.”
https://ncte.org/blog/2020/03/literacy-just-reading-writing
What should we know about this status?
Using the percentage of the population 15 years and older who can read and write as a measure of literacy, Andorra, Finland, Greenland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and North Korea tie for #1 with 100% of their citizens being literate. North Korea? If a dictator says everyone can read, everyone is literate. The United States is in a large group of nations ranking #2 with 99% of the population rated as literate. Sounds good, but is it?
https://www.uscareerinstitute.edu/blog/which-countries-have-the-highest-and-lowest-literacy-rates
These data raise questions as to how we decide an adult is literate at the international level. This is how the data are gathered.
“The breakdown of strategies for deciding literacy covers four categories:
- self-reported literacy declared directly by individuals,
- self-reported literacy declared by the head of the household,
- tested literacy from proficiency examinations, and
- indirect estimation or extrapolation.
In most cases, the categories covering ‘self-reports’ correspond to estimates of literacy that rely on answers provided to a simple yes/no question asking people if they can read and write. The category ‘indirect estimation’ corresponds mainly to estimates that rely on indirect evidence from educational attainment, usually based on the highest degree of completed education.”
https://ourworldindata.org/how-is-literacy-measured
Based on self-reported data collection, many adults in the world consider themselves to be literate. But are they? Literacy is more than a statistical number.
Literacy is a functional tool.
Literacy is a tool. “… literacy is the way that we interact with the world around us, how we shape it and are shaped by it. It is how we communicate with others via reading and writing, but also by speaking, listening, and creating. It is how we articulate our experience in the world and declare, ‘We Are Here!’”
https://ncte.org/blog/2020/03/literacy-just-reading-writing
This consideration of literacy, that is how we communicate and receive communication from others and how we create communicative information, opens new concepts of what it means to be literate. “According to a study by the University of California – San Diego, the average American consumes about 34 gigabytes of data and information every day. This volume is equivalent of around 100,000 words heard or read daily.”
In our age of digital and virtual information, adults are bombarded by and likewise spew volumes of information daily. A literate adult must be skillful and competent on both sides of receiving and sending literacy.
Interestingly the Cambridge Dictionary points to both definitions – status and tool. Cambridge defines literacy as “the ability to read and write.” And literacy is the “knowledge of a particular subject, or a particular type of knowledge. Computer literacy is becoming as essential as the ability to drive a car.”
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/literacy
UNESCO reinforces literacy as an essential tool. “Literacy is a means of identification, understanding, interpretation, creation, and communication in an increasingly digital, text-mediated, information-rich, and fast-changing world. On the historical international scene, literacy is a statistic of the population who can read and write. Literacy also is a broad array of functional skills that are applied in a successful adult life. For others, literacy is the ability to access and understand information in multiple contexts.”
https://ncte.org/blog/2020/03/literacy-just-reading-writing
This other “tomato” version of literacy opens the realm of higher order skills that are necessary for understanding, interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating information that is read and heard. And then doing something with or because of what one has read and heard. Literacy is making meaning of and considering what to do with information.
Able to read. At what level of reading?
Self-reporting is not an adequate measure of how we use literacy as a tool. “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defines literacy across six levels. People with Level 1 or below literacy skills are considered to have very poor literacy skills, while Level 3 is considered the minimum literacy skills required for coping with everyday life.
- Below Level 1: Adults can read brief texts on familiar topics and locate a single piece of specific information. Only basic vocabulary knowledge is required, and adults are not required to understand the structure of sentences of paragraphs.
- Level 1: Adults can read relatively short digital or print texts to locate a single piece of information that is identical to or synonymous with the information given in the question. Knowledge and skill in recognizing basic vocabulary, determining the meaning of sentence, and reading short paragraphs of text is expected.
- Level 2: Adults can make matches between the text, either digital or printed, and information. Adults can paraphrase or make low-level inferences.
- Level 3: Adults are required to read and navigate dense, lengthy or complex texts.
- Level 4: Adults can integrate, interpret or synthesize information from complex or lengthy texts. Adults can identify and understand one or more specific, non-central idea(s) in the text in order to interpret or evaluate subtle evidence-claim or persuasive discourse relationships.
- Level 5: Adults can search for and integrate information across multiple, dense texts; construct syntheses of similar and contrasting ideas or points of view; or evaluate evidence-based arguments. Adults understand subtle, rhetorical cues and can make high-level inferences or use specialized background knowledge.”
As a literacy tool, how well do we read?
We get a different portrait of literacy in the United States when we use the OECD’s evidence-based data. Remember that the U.S. claims a 99% literacy status using self-reporting and other non-scientific methods.
“The most recent national survey on adult literacy is from 2012-2017, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics as part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The U.S. ranks 16th among the 33 OECD nations included in this study.
Nationally, over 1 in 5 adults (in the United States) have a literacy proficiency at or below Level 1. Adults in this range have difficulty using or understanding print materials. Those on the higher end of this category can perform simple tasks based on the information they read, but adults below Level 1 may only understand very basic vocabulary or be functionally illiterate.
On the upside, “46% of adults in the U.S. have a literacy proficiency at or above level 3. Adults at Levels 3, 4, and 5 have varying degrees of proficiency in understanding, interpreting and synthesizing information from multiple, complex texts to infer meaning and draw conclusions.”
https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy
Huh!
Approximately half of the adults in the U.S. have functional literacy tools that are “considered the minimum literacy skills required for coping with everyday life.” The other half of that statistic have less that minimal literacy skills.
The application of literacy as a functional tool is not just eye-opening for the United States. Using the OECD study, 14.9% (or 1 in 7) adults in England have literacy levels below Level 3, which is the equivalent to the literacy skills expected of a nine to 11-year-old.”
These conclusions are supported by other studies. A Gallup analysis of literacy information gathered by the US Department of Education reports that “About 130 million adults in the U.S., roughly half of Americans between 16 and 74 – have low literacy skills. In this study, literacy is broadly defined as the ability to read and write, but more accurately encompasses the comprehension, evaluation and utilization of information, which is why people describe different types of literacy – such as health, financial, and legal. Low literacy skills can profoundly affect the day-to-day success of adults in the real world, and these impacts extent to their families, too.”
https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy
Literacy and public education.
Reading achievement has become the annual dip stick for measuring educational effectiveness in the U.S. since No Child Left Behind became national policy in 2002. State, school district, and school report cards annually publicize the percentage of students who meet the state’s performance expectations in reading. In a nation that self-reports its adults to be literate, children in school struggle with reading.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction reported, “For 2023-24, assessment results show public school student proficiency rates in ELA were at 48%. Students participating in the state’s Private School Choice Programs had a proficiency rate of 30.9 percent. Assessment results show proficiency gaps among different student subgroups continue to exist.”
https://dpi.wi.gov/news/releases/2024/student-assessment-results-forward
It is worthwhile to note that “meeting expectations” on a statewide reading or ELA assessment is not a high standard. State “expectations” are minimal levels of reading ability, very much like Level 2 on the OECD literacy assessment. The number of children meeting “expectations” is nothing to really cheer about. They met a low bar.
In truth, every graduation class fits into the OECD and Gallup estimation of adult literacy in the U.S. – about half of the graduates and young adults in our country meet minimal literacy standards.
When we apply literacy as a status to high school graduates, our society annually receives semi-literate young adults into our communities and general employment. As a result of education, more than half of our adult citizenry can only minimally read and write.
When we apply the second definition, we realize that the hierarchy of our layered economic society does not require every adult to be highly literate. Many high school graduates lack the ability to fully read and listen to complex and technical information and then translate it into their daily lives and jobs fulfill society’s economic needs. They are employed and pay taxes. Their earnings circulate in our consumer-based economy. They are law abiding and live socially in our cities, towns, and countryside. The majority do not need more than a high school diploma plus technical or on-the-job training to live in the United States.
“In 2021, the highest level of education of the population age 25 and older in the United States was distributed as follows:
- 8.9% had less than a high school diploma or equivalent.
- 27.9% had high school graduate as their highest level of school completed.
- 14.9% had completed some college but not a degree.
- 10.5% had an associate degree as their highest level of school completed.
- 23.5% had a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree.
- 14.4% had completed an advanced degree such as a master’s degree, professional degree or doctoral degree.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/educational-attainment.html
Incomplete literacy can lead to incomplete understanding.
The ability to read, understand, and evaluate information has become more essential as the volume of daily information has increased. When a person hears or reads almost 100,000 words daily, a person must either try to process all that information or begin to categorize and ignore selected types and sources of information. My best bet is the latter. People become increasingly selective in the media they listen to and the text they read, ignoring sources that do not agree with their personal points of view. As they scan text and skim media, they disregard sources they do not agree with and pay attention only to sources agreeable to their perspectives. The loss of a 360-degree listening and reading narrows their understanding to the range of information they choose to hear and read.
Let’s do the arithmetic. In Wisconsin, less than half of our students meet minimal expectations on statewide reading assessments. With their high school and associate degrees, they elect to hear and read only words that express their points of view about our state and world. If this is true, then we need to add a third tomato – incomplete literacy. Given that literacy is a tool, when the tool or reading and listening is applied only to what we want to read and hear, then we have achieved incomplete literacy.
We always do get what we settle for.
Our national and state Founding Fathers valued education. Because they believed a literate populace would be better able to take part in our democratic form of government, they supported public education. The ability to read was essential for voters to make informed choices of leadership and the policies their leaders would execute. As a nation of immigrants, literacy in the English language has always been a pathway to citizenship.
With all that purpose and history, today we have achieved a nation that is minimally and incompletely literate and this is considered good enough for our economic and political welfare.
In a world that is over-informationed, we are under-literate. As educators, we have work to do!