Unfriendly reminder that over half of United States adults read at or below an 8th grade level. My favorite part of this statistic is fact that, unless you’ve had your reading comprehension tested in an objective manner recently, you have no idea whether you fall in the upper or lower half. Statistically, half of the people reading this comment read it with a lower proficiency than a middle schooler.

Ever since I learned that huge swathes of people younger than me in the US weren’t taught phonics when learning to read and instead were told to look at the letters and guess from context what the word is it has made so many internet arguments make a lot more sense. A lot of kids will pick phonics up on their own to an extent, but the ones that don’t are just fucked.

It’s appalling because it’s basically how being functionally illiterate works, but for some reason now it’s the goal. And then they complain kids can’t engage with complex reading and ideas.