When I was in High School, it seemed like the teachers always chose the kids who had trouble reading out loud to do the reading from the textbook. I stumble on my words when reading out loud, but that's because I read faster in my head so I trip on my words haha, but whenever I was chosen to read out loud it was like a few sentences but when it was that one kid who takes a long time to finish a sentence, it's kind of sad since they were chosen to read paragraphs.
Or so IcC could just have a laugh reading some of the posts here... Is this really necessary? Especially considering you have already posted a thread about this, and you are posting on your phone...
You have a very extensive opinion of the science of literacy. The fact of the matter is that reading and comprehension are in fact focused on grade-level scale to show the abilities expected of the individual to prosper in the grade level they are introduced to the literature . A run of the mill 4 year old could never possibly read Hamlet nor comprehend it. However, take this same 4 year old, allow him/her to become appropriately educated and then present a copy of Hamlet, and gauge the ability at differing ages of children, teens and young adults. On average, it will take a college educated individual to read and comprehend. I would continue to do my own intelligent research but I have to move on to earning a living with my college level reading comprehension skills.
I'm not saying reading doesn't become increasingly difficult as you grow up, but that there's no bar for what the average reader of that age group can do. Like you said, there isn't a 4 year old who can read and comprehend Hamlet, but there's plenty of adults just incapable. There's 7th graders who could understand it completely whereas someone in college may have a lot of difficulty with it. Shakespeare was a very talented but difficult to understand writer. So much goes into his work and because it's not always easy to understand people don't appreciate it the way they should. My opinion on this is mostly based off of experience. As I've grown up I've met plenty of people my age capable of reading and comprehending advanced works of literature whereas I've met and had friends who are very challenged with it. I know reading gets progressively more difficult as you age, but I don't think that there is a standard simply because there are so many factors going into it and so many different styles that it's hard to measure somebody's capabilities. In my experience, the schools don't really focus on reading enough. You're given maybe 3-4 book reports to do + a few short stories when people are capable of doing more. Someone who reads in their free time is much more advanced then someone who strictly reads for school. If you read even just a few books, like 4, outside of school starting from 3rd grade, then by the time you're a senior you've read 30 more books then your 'only school reading' counterparts, and so you've experienced different writing styles, different vocabulary, different theme, motif, allusion and more. You're also doing the reading at school so you are still learning what they do, but on your free time, even if it was just for fun, you've learned a lot more. It'd be much more fair to judge someone based off of how much they read instead of how old they are/what grade are they in. Age does make a difference as in 2nd grade when you read a coloring book you have to just read the book and talk about what it is, whereas in high school you focus on things that aren't just written out for you, like symbolism.
This article is basing the reading on what grade someone is in instead of a student's own capabilities. Just because something is marked for a certain grade doesn't mean everyone in that age group understands it, or only people that far in schooling CAN understand it. If a book rating was 7.1 then not only 7th graders would understand it. 5th graders could, as could 6th graders. Like I said, but this level system is assuming that kids all have the same difficulties with reading, even though when you get older more and more trouble areas arise. I know that it'd be a lot harder to base it off individual students, so they go by grade level just to make the reading more advanced because focusing on one or a few students who are further ahead/farther behind doesn't benefit everyone as much as slow progression, but because learning how to properly read varies from person to person you can't base class on the students, you just have to focus on the age. I guess I was wrong and you can base someone's reading skill on grade level, but I still find it to be inaccurate.
Story of my (English class) life! Since there is only like 5 boys out of a class of 30 (I don't know why there is so little, I guess boys just aren't very good at literature) in my literature class, I was always seemed to be picked on by the teacher, I think she gathered by me being pretty quiet and sitting at the back that I'm not very confident at reading in front of the whole class but she always picked me. I remember when we were reading An Inspector Calls she picked to main part for me, and I wasn't very confident but she said she wanted me to read it, I stuttered a lot and couldn't pronounce words correctly that I could normally easily say, the worst about it was that sometimes you had to read several paragraphs one after another. I don't know if she was doing it to be 'mean' or just trying to improve my confidence for reading to the class, either way it didn't help.
I think you are talking about grades. Grades are a way of comparing a student's abilities to a standard. When we say we are in a certain "grade", that's just as general description of our abilities which vary more widely as we advance. Our governments mainly determine what the criteria for school grade levels are and the curriculum they will use to obtain those goals. They determine the "bar" you refer to against which our students "capabilities" are measured. If an individual receives poor grades in school, he does not advance with his peers. If he does exceptionally well he is allowed to skip levels or classes. Grades are also applied to government, the military, and civilian jobs. There are many tests. This year where I live, I think my son took the Iowa Test of Basic Skills test which helps the school determine how well it is meeting the US Federal standards. Next fall, he plans on taking the ACT and SAT tests they offer in anticipation of going to college. I took them over 30 years ago. The SAT and ACT have long been the standard our post secondary instiutions use to measure what a student has learned already and are used for admissions and class placement. If you score high, more institutions will accept you and you may be able to place in higher classes. You score lower and you'll be accepted by fewer places and can expect to take more classes to graduate. I used to tutor kids who were having problems in school. Mostly Math and Reading, but often they were just having social or attendance problems and needed help getting caught up with material they had missed while they were ill. We would test them to find out where they fit into OUR program. Then we would take a small step back into material they knew well and start working with them from there. We would test them regularly and we would work on progressively harder material until they had advanced enough to meet their goals. Usually this meant that they had caught up or surpassed their grade levels. I've read that if you are challenging yourself properly, you will read material that has no more than five unknown(to you) words per page. This is considered few enough to not frustrate you and allows for enough known material to extrapolate new word meanings from their context and rarely need to grab a dictionary. As reading applies to an EMC Staff application, it is likely the only impression ICC can have of you, so I agree that it's important to understand the instructions and explain anything you add to the application well so it is a sort of literacy test.
Yes, a standard or "bar" is set to gauge an individuals performance against an expected ability. Some will perform above expectations, some will perform below expectations and the majority will fall right in line with the expected ability. This does not invalidate the science. It allows us to identify those who will require pictures to understand the world and those who will scientifically develop the symbols used to warn the imbeciles of the world of their impending doom with pretty bright stickers.
