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You can’t read between the lines if you can’t read

Daniel Piotrowski

by Daniel Piotrowski

20 Feb 05:50am

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Filed under: Early Childhood, Education, Gonski Report, Literacy, Work

87 comments

What would it be like to be illiterate in Australia today?

Reading. It's cute. Picture: Kristi Miller

You probably wouldn’t be able to follow medical instructions properly. You’d struggle to comprehend the news. You wouldn’t be able to understand the many important contracts that get put in front of us at key junctures in our lives. And you wouldn’t be able to navigate all the forms you have to sign to access the entitlements you have as a citizen—like getting Medicare and your tax returns.

Naturally, all this would make your quality of life a lot poorer. If you can’t read lines of print then you sure as hell can’t read between them. And there are many more illiterate Australians out there than most of us would have thought.

The Prime Minister made a big speech about literacy last week and the statistics she quoted about Australian literacy were shocking. So shocking that they still managed to get some airtime in spite of the Labor’s Perpetual Leadership Speculation Machine: Half of all Australians don’t have the literacy skills they need to cope with the demands of every day life and work.

The Punch’s initial reaction to this was: What? Surely she can’t be serious. Those figures must be wrong. We’re one of the most developed and well educated nations on the planet, aren’t we?

Turns out those figures are correct—although the picture is a little more complicated than that.

According to OECD figures, we’re one of the most literate countries on the planet. We come in at number 6. We’re only really below the usual list-toppers, like Finland and the usual Scandinavian crew.

But those figures are drawn from standardised tests like NAPLAN that, although they indicate overall levels of literacy, don’t necessarily delve into the realms of how literate a person is that are exposed by their ability to argue a point or write and speak creatively.

And those figures also don’t take into account how our world is constantly becoming more complex minute after minute.

For instance, last week The Punch had a chat to the president of the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association, Robyn Ewing, a professor at Sydney University. Ewing told The Punch she considers herself a little bit illiterate—not when it comes to reading words, of course, but when it comes to interacting with some of the new technological jargon that we’re buffetted with everyday.

“Even if you learnt to read and don’t then regularly read, it’s not something that stays current forever,” Professor Ewing says. Many people fall out of the habits of learning and reading as they grow older. And as new jargons come into existence, they encounter a world that’s much more difficult to understand than it was before.

It’s not just the fault of the person, a person’s parents or the education system though. The communicator has some blame.

A friend of The Punch, a policeman who often doles out court summons, claims legal jargon is at fault for preventing many people from turning up to court.

And then there’s the plague of terms and conditions that we run into every day as internet users. Sure, people rarely read them. But it’s a bit hard when T&Cs are 56 pages long and you’d need a law degree and a masochistic fetish to understand what rights you’re signing away to a megacorporation.

The biggest report into Australia’s education system in 30 years will drop today. The Gonski report will make a number of recommendations into the funding of private and public schools. It will tackle the funding inequalities at the heart of the system.

Literacy experts told The Punch late last week that early childhood is the best chance teachers and parents get to drill the principles of literacy into kids’ brains, to get them into good habits and erase any problems they may have because of a disadvantaged background.

Let’s hope that giving all kids a fair go from the very beginning is at the top of Gonski’s mind.

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87 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Emma says:

      05:46am | 20/02/12

      Ever seen a TV ad, commonly for internet/mobile services, where they have heaps of *** behind the AWESOME price and for a splitsecond at the end they blend in 10 lines of tiny text to explain the the conditions.

      I have NEVER been able to read it.

      This issue has not much to do with literacy.

      Reply
    • Daniel Piotrowski

      Daniel Piotrowski says:

      09:15am | 20/02/12

      Same sort of thing with signs on car parks that say “starting from $5” - then you go in and they’re $5 just to go in the car park and it’s $30 for 3 hours or somesuch.

    • acotrel says:

      05:51am | 20/02/12

      This literacy and numeracy issue is of critical importance. The current situation cannot be allowed to continue, it will damage our future.  I think my kids learned to read and count through the hours I spent with them playing monopoly, scrabble, 500, and gin rummy.  They all have good jobs, two are skilled professionals.  However I can see a real problem in families where there is little heritage of intellectual pursuits. Perhaps there should be time devoted to those silly games, in primary schools ? A big element is competition, and I believe that ‘dumbing down’ our education system to make kids feel comfortable is dangerous.

      Reply

    • WarBaby says:

      11:33am | 20/02/12

      I have been teaching adults to read since most of you were glints in your daddy’s eyes.  I have also taught all levels from pre-school to post doctoral and have seen the death of my lovely English language creeping in with ever greater rapidity.  When I first started teaching adults in 1974, only 20% of them were functionally illiterate, now it is 50%, a huge decline in less than four decades.  What happened?  You cannot blame it all on the indigenous or the immigrants, we have always had those.  From my observation of teaching standards, and teaching colleagues, it all starts with teachers who are barely literate themselves and parents and children who do not value either education or the need to be literate to communicate effectively.  There were 80 fatal grammatical errors in the Queensland grammar handbook.  The senior lecturer in TESOL in a local university uses apostrophes to make plurals.  Read the blogs on any news article (and Punch) and you will find that most people who have something to say, can’t elucidate well enough to actually make what they say understandable to others.  Most would think that a homophone is a gay phone and forget about syntax, most journalists buried that along with adjectives many years ago.  Now that university professors allow people to use texting language in their tutorial presentations (and one I know got the Order of Australia for that innovation in education standards), all I can say is ‘Apres mois le deluge!’

    • Kika says:

      12:36pm | 20/02/12

      I agree with WarBaby. The education of teachers is a huge problem. My husband is doing an accelerated education course and he hasn’t come across a subject about how to engage students. Because he has another degree under his belt we assume they count that as a minimum level of attainment for things such as grammar, general knowledge and intelligence. Another issue I think is the quality of teachers. In the old days if a smart woman wanted to work, she was a teacher. Now she can do anything she wants, whether it’s a lawyer, doctor, businesswoman, engineer. Why? They pay well! Teachers don’t!

      Now all you need is average year 12 results and you can get into an education degree so we’re educating our kids from people of average educational achievement themselves. What we need to do is value teachers, pay them appropriately and according to the social good they provide (as well as rewarding them for results) and bumping up the minimum level of attainment at high school to enter into university. We need to attract smart people back to teaching again.

      Oh and the apostrophe… it drives me mad! In my work I receive files that have been input by entry level folk and sometimes the grammar and spelling make me laugh. Like a plumbing pipe ‘rapturing’ (REALLY?!!!) or ‘Vehicle’s’ (The vehicle’s what? Tyes? Steering wheel? Or do you mean more than one vehicle?)

    • Craig says:

      06:20am | 20/02/12

      Let’s consider another approach.

      Rather than making people more literate to suit our systems, let’s make our systems human usable.

      Training humans to read legal notes, terms and conditions and complex government forms is a poor use of resources.

      We need to invest in systems that use plain English - and train our literacy challenged doctors, bureaucrats and lawyers to write more effectively.

      Reply

    • Mahhrat says:

      06:59am | 20/02/12

      Give this man more internet.

      We have a reliable measure of “reading age”.  No document read by Joe Public (that is, lacking technical specificiations) should ever be beyond a reading age of 13.  Make them easy to follow makes them easier to enforce.

    • acotrel says:

      07:07am | 20/02/12

      Is what you are saying effectively, is when we discuss global warming we should not use big words such as ‘thermodynamics’ ? Sounds good to me, but it’s difficult to teach quantum mechanics only using grunts !

    • acotrel says:

      07:28am | 20/02/12

      @Mahrat
      Should we develop an ‘aborigine test’ for public documents ? A minute ago there was a literacy test applied to all immigrants.  Are our standards slipping ?

    • M says:

      07:30am | 20/02/12

      Bollocks. Why should we dumb down the language because a few illiterates can’t be bothered to learn it?

    • marley says:

      07:37am | 20/02/12

      @acotrel - no, what he’s saying is that when you apply for the aged pension you should be able to understand the form and the eligibility criteria.  When do your tax return, you shouldn’t need to hire an accountant to complete it for you. When you apply for home or car insurance, you shouldn’t need a 20 page booklet explaining what you are and are not entitled to, and still be surprised when you try to make a claim.

    • Kika says:

      08:47am | 20/02/12

      Craig if we trained everybody how to read contract law then there would be no need for contract law Solicitors! Or Conveyancing… or Justice of the Peaces!

      Oh no… those people you mentioned write just fine… they write so fine and so tight they know and cover everything… you just need a JP or a lawyer to decipher it for yourself if you can’t read it! That’s why they will always tell you to seek independent legal advice before agreeing to anything.

      I love legal jargon. Love it. Dumbing down the law for the lowest common denominator would be a travesty!

    • ba'al says:

      09:46am | 20/02/12

      @Kika, we need to look after the stupid people becuase they are legion.
      Our society is increasingly treating citizens like mini corporations. Lots of people simply lack the capacity to learn beyond a simple level. If you are unable to communicate to your message that is becuase you are lacking.
      Also every time I go for surgery I let the doctors know at the end of the day I am simply trusting their word before i sign the waiver to undergo an operation where a team of 11 people with over 150 years of formal training and experience will cut me up. I still appreciate having the risks explained in simple english.

    • Ben C says:

      09:54am | 20/02/12

      @ Craig

      Plain English can only be used in certain circumstances - Centrelink forms definitely qualify.

      However, lawyers and doctors use terminology that would take double the page space to explain. Take a simple medical term such as “hamstring”. In a document that refers to that part numerous times, I would rather see numerous instances of that word only, rather than numerous instances of “muscle that runs down the back of the thigh”.

      Some things just can’t be converted into plain English - just like acotrel’s “thermodynamics”.

    • Kika says:

      10:17am | 20/02/12

      Ba’al - those liability waivers don’t mean much. They can’t hold you on signing away your rights to hold them liable if they stuff up. They should be explaining the risks to you in the beginning. The key is the level of stuff up… if its a low risk thing and they monumentally stuff up you still have rights to sue them.

    • maybe says:

      10:55am | 20/02/12

      kika - isn’t it “Justices of the peace”...

    • DOB says:

      02:19pm | 20/02/12

      Kika, I wouldnt bet on that if I were you.

      Craig, nice idea. But you’re pointing the stick at the wrong people. If you can train someone to pay tax without splitting hairs about how much they’re paying then you have found the magic formula that will open the door to a world of plain english legalese. I wont hold my breath. Until then people like me will be forced to use a lot of words to make sure that people like you lot do what you have agreed to do, or do what you are required to by law to do. The alternative is having most of you in a courtroom all the time disputing whether a particular word in your “plain english” document or law actually applies to whatever it was that you didnt do. Like communism, plain english is a nice idea but it goes against the fundamental self-interested nature of most human beings, who will hair split whenever they think it’s most in their interests to do so.

    • SteveKAG says:

      07:11am | 20/02/12

      I manage blue collar workers, mot of these people (mostly men) have not completed secondardy school, for some the level of literacy in reading and in particular writing is so poor they would be classed as illterate.

      Putting aside the fact they did not finish secondary school, they still got to year 9 or so….......how did they manage to slip thruogh the system and continue to get bumped up each year.  Our school system and their way of evauating kids has changed to what it used to be when i was growing up. 

      We don’t test our kids properly and we are too afraid to keep them down a year because it might hurt their emotional development, i woudl argue we are hurting them more by not keeping them down.

      Less fluff and more substance i think is needed in our education system.

      Reply

    • Emma says:

      07:37am | 20/02/12

      But what can the teachers really do? Reading and writing is something that has to be practised. With your parents. They should sit you down with a book in the evening and read with you.

      A teacher friend of mine says he is so busy teaching the kids basic behaviour and manners he cant even get into what he is supposed to teach them.

    • Al says:

      07:50am | 20/02/12

      The other side to this is from my own experience, why is it that a child who performs in the top 2 of their year in the school (the year, not the class) is forced to repeat that year simply because the school thinks they are ‘too young’?
      This happend to me (in year 6) and I still don’t understand it?

    • SteveKAG says:

      09:00am | 20/02/12

      I agree Emma, no matter where the child gets the education the responsibility for allowing the child to go up a year or keeping them down is still with the teacher.
      In grade 6 i was struggling, my teacher at the time (a person i will forever be grateful to) kept me in at recess and half of my lunch to spend one on one time with me, i passed that year with the highest in the class to be allowed to go to secondary school where i mostly got A’s when it came to science, reading, maths, legal & business studies etc…
      A teacher in grade 6 took the time to educated me, took the time to show me how to study, took the time to show me that i could do well in school. This single teacher changed my life, i wonder how many of those teachers are out there today?  I am not really blaming teachers in relation to this article more the system and our softer attitudes as a soceity in relation to just letting kids slide.

      I have not doubt that teachers are spending too much time on non-teacher activities, the whole class and system suffers when this happens.

    • Daniel Piotrowski

      Daniel Piotrowski says:

      09:18am | 20/02/12

      @SteveKAG - Yeah. There was a report done by the Australian industry group which is where the PM got some of her figures last week that said similar sorts of things. But I’m not sure you can keep kids in school if they’re just not interested in it - there needs to be more vocational pathways I reckon.

    • Jane2 says:

      09:43am | 20/02/12

      I agree and it works in both directions, when we are putting a kid who “socialises” into prep while keeping the kid who can already read in kindy you are stunted both groups.

      There is a reason why we are falling behind our Asian neighbours, and that is because they know that being able to read, write and do maths is more important that being the most popular kid in school…after all being popular in school wont get you a well paying job (unless its in the porn industry that is)

    • SteveKAG says:

      02:04pm | 20/02/12

      @Daniel.
      I don’t understand why we ever left the High School versus Technical School sytem in the first place, it seemed to me that we decided on a one size fits all education system when in reality kids don’t come like that.
      I went to a Technical School but found i was really a High School kid.  The tech schools gave more emphasis on things like sheet metal, wood work etc., there is a great majoriy of teenagers out there who just don’t have what it takes to be a book worm, should we really insist that they do?

      I think we are undereducating our generations byt insisting they fit into a box.  I have a daughter just commencing year 11 this year.  The work load i know she will have one will be enormous.  I hope she will do well, i have done a lot of home schooling in terms of reading and writing and she had 3 years of prviate maths tutoring just to get her up to speed.

    • DOB says:

      07:47pm | 20/02/12

      Al, it was probably becuase you were annoying. I suspect you still wont understand that though.

    • Kheiron says:

      07:24am | 20/02/12

      I remember when I was in year 12 back in 2004. In a move reminiscent of primary school the teacher whipped out the book and asked the class to alternate reading paragraphs. My god.
      About a third couldn’t read well enough to make their paragraph understandable unless you were reading along. Another third read well enough but not as well as you’d expect someone nearing their high school graduation.

      Also, I certainly don’t remember learning anything about my legal rights as an adult. No explanation into taxes, banking, budgeting. Nothing about general maintenance of a motor vehicle. Generally, nothing about the inescapable basics every person needs to deal with in life.
      I do remember, however, learning how to deduce the area under the curve should I ever feel the need to design and build a bridge…

      Reply

    • marley says:

      07:39am | 20/02/12

      I had a young relative read a magazine article out loud to me. She was in year 12 at the time, and heading for uni.  I was dismayed at how badly she read, and how many words she was unfamiliar with. It was a magazine article, for heavens sake, not a text on quantum physics.  I thought then there was something wrong with the system, and I still think so.

    • Al says:

      07:55am | 20/02/12

      “No explanation into taxes, banking, budgeting. Nothing about general maintenance of a motor vehicle. Generally, nothing about the inescapable basics every person needs to deal with in life.”
      So you never took mathematics, metal work, home economics, textile design, woodwork, or similar?
      Funny, it used to be compulsary that everone would complete the basics of these for year 10.
      As for maintenance of a motor vehicle, thats not realy something we need to teach kids as the majority of modern motor vehicles have very little that can be maintained by the user without voiding the warranty. What can be, can be covered in a course of a couple of hours or with a simple pamphlet, most likely included in the vehicle pappers on purchase of a new vehicle.

    • Emma says:

      07:58am | 20/02/12

      marley

      Maybe her family should step in instead of blaming it on the system?

    • marley says:

      08:31am | 20/02/12

      @Emma - the thing is, from the perspective of the family, and more to the point, of the school system, she was and is doing just fine. Good marks throughout her school career, and now she’s been accepted by a good university.  That tells me that the standards of the school system are askew somewhere .

    • Magic Dragon says:

      08:36am | 20/02/12

      Al: last car we bought, at the end of his spiel, the sales guy lifted the bonnet and said “There it is. You won’t need to look under there again.” And he was right.

    • Kika says:

      08:44am | 20/02/12

      I graduated in year 2000. All of those things you mentioned were covered in a course called Citizenship Education which you did if you weren’t learning a language and Maths A. That’s in QLD.  The ‘Smart State’. Hahaha. Ahem.

    • Kika says:

      09:01am | 20/02/12

      @Marley -  It does appear to be very odd that her family and her school haven’t seen any problems with her reading comprehension. However, and this is my number 1 gripe with high school education…. enough with the focus on getting as many kids into university as they can. Not everyone is cut out to go to university and not everybody should go just for the sake of it.

      Getting more kids into uni makes the school look good. I remember when I was doing senior the school and the school counsellor was OBSESSED with our OP scores and making sure we were all doing OP subjects and not school-only subjects.

      Maybe this girl isn’t a scholar, but would be best suited to another career but her school and family wants her to go to university as they think this is the right way?

      One day a university degree won’t mean anything (if it already doesn’t) because everybody has one. It will be the smart kids out there getting trades and running good businesses who will be the millionaires of tomorrow.

    • Rose says:

      09:03am | 20/02/12

      Al, the all-girls school I send my girls to was picked with two key points in mind. Firstly, they have exceptional academic results and secondly they do not waste time with subjects like Home Economics or Textiles. These are things they learn at home while helping around the house. As for mechanics etc, that’s why we pay tradesmen, because they know this stuff, we put more emphasis on them learning how to be sure they are not getting ripped off by shonky operators. That and a few absolute basics, checking oil & water/coolant, changing tyres.
      I send my kids to school to learn stuff I can’t teach them, not to be ‘taught’ stuff they already know or will learn in the course of living their lives.

    • marley says:

      09:19am | 20/02/12

      @kika - the point is, her reading comprehension is at or above the level the school system expects of her.  That’s what worries me.  This really has nothing to do with my relatives:  I’ve got no doubt she’s university capable, and that she will do at least as well as her peers (she’s mature and a hard worker).  But I’m concerned that the fundamentals for her (and for a lot of university graduates I’ve dealt with) are at a standard well below what they should be.

    • bella starkey says:

      09:42am | 20/02/12

      I think you are all being a little harsh. I still have difficulty reading aloud. I can read perfectly silently, I can recite things from memory perfectly aloud but reading aloud really gets me. I think it’s psychological, I had a stutter as a small child and the idea of it gets me very flustered and embarrassed.

      It’s more about confidence than literacy.

    • Bertrand says:

      09:48am | 20/02/12

      I had similar experiences at university when they would make us do group assignments. The number of people in the final year of a four year degree who were unable to write a coherent sentence was shocking.

      Personally, I don’t think you can be a good writer unless you are an avid reader. The only way you can really learn the structure of our written language is to immerse yourself in it.

      Teachers can teach the rules, but unless the students are willing to invest the time learning and practising those rules, they aren’t going to be able to apply the rules to their writing.

    • Jane2 says:

      10:00am | 20/02/12

      @Marley, being able to read out loud and being able to read are two very different things.

      I read “War & Peace” in Yr 7 but I still stumble over my words when reading aloud as my eye to brain to mouth circuit is not a smooth running machine.

      Reading allowed is a seperate skill that has nothing to do with how well someone is academically.

      If you want to know if the system is working asking her comprehension of the article.

    • Kate says:

      10:08am | 20/02/12

      I have heard that teachers aren’t taught to do that alternating paragraphs reading thing any more and thank god for that. That was one of the most frustrating experiences of my time at school.

    • Kika says:

      10:30am | 20/02/12

      I’ve even heard that a lot of universities don’t teach students how to engage with children to ensure they understand. So you do an education degree and come away with it being completely unprepared and unequipped with the skills to engage your students.  In China some classes have 2 to 3 teachers per class. One teacher takes the lesson, the others help the students engage with and understand what is being taught.

    • marley says:

      11:41am | 20/02/12

      @Jane2 - oh, I agree on that point.  But she actually didn’t know the meanings of some of the words. That’s the issue I’m concerned about.  And in my experience with younger people in the work force, she’s not unique.

    • amy says:

      12:25pm | 20/02/12

      gaaahh somtimes listening to your classmates read aloud is the ost painful thing ever..especially if they cant read..eather way I find myself reading ahead

    • amy says:

      12:29pm | 20/02/12

      that said, reading aloud and actually reading are different

      after a LONg time on not really reading much, and not reading aloud I actually had some difficulty reading aloud from a book…but I think I soon got back into it

    • Kika says:

      12:43pm | 20/02/12

      But a graduate at what? You can study anything these days.

      Plus, schools can differ as to what they count as being A grade level or B, C etc. I went from one school where I was scoring A+++ for science and then went to another only a year later to get B’s and C’s.

    • Slothy says:

      01:03pm | 20/02/12

      Marley, be careful about judging her reading comprehension skills based on her ability to read an unprepared text out loud. I have always had very good reading comprehension skills, especially when it comes to parsing out difficult or nuanced text. I am terrible at reading out loud, especially if I haven’t read the text through beforehand. My pronunciation is bad, because there are plenty of words that I can spell and understand, but never needed to speak aloud. If I don’t know where the sentence is going before I read it, I emphasise and pause in the wrong places, causing the appearance of stumbling.

      If she can’t explain what the article means and what it’s implications are, you may have a problem. But if she is just struggling to read an unfamiliar piece out loud instead of in her head, well, that’s something that can be fixed with practice.

    • Shrikey says:

      01:27pm | 20/02/12

      It’s funny that there are people commenting on this that can’t spell things like separate and aloud.

    • Kheiron says:

      04:39pm | 20/02/12

      Al, of course I took math. I could easily do percentages, interest, probability…hell, I could even deduce the centrifugal force required to keep a ball on a string at a certain angle. I did Math B, Math C, Physics, Chemistry and Biology in my senior year.
      Still don’t recall ever being walked through the Australian Taxation system, though.
      I also took Home Ec up to year 10. I made my own pants and can cook a mean lasagna…but there was nothing in there about banking and budgeting.

      I’ll conceed the point about basic vehicle maintenance. Chalk that up to personal experience over Toyota’s $500 oil change.
      How about we teach kids to drive, at least.
      Knew a girl who had her license for 3 years. Swerved to miss a roo in excess of 80kph then reefed on the handbrake, while sideways, because, and I quote, “I thought that was how you stopped fast”. She survived, evidentally, but she did manage to make the car touch on the opposite side of the tree.

      Or…how about we teach kids the stuff we claim we’re already teaching them?
      My girlfriend has a college degree. She can’t do simple math.
      My mother, at the age of 45, went back to high school to finish year 12 (previously only completing year 9 all those years ago). She told me one day, no lie, that she had to explain to the teacher…the year 12 math teacher…that you could multiply or divide a number by 10 by moving the decimal point. She also said that the students couldn’t do two digit math without the use of a calculator.

      Something is clearly not working.

    • acotrel says:

      07:34am | 20/02/12

      ’ And there are many more illiterate Australians out there than most of us would have thought. ‘

      So that explains why some people vote the way they do - their opinions come only from TV and their peer group, and not from ever reading history ?
      Perhaps it’s a form of ‘group think’ ?

      Reply

    • Bertrand says:

      09:51am | 20/02/12

      Of course you are referring to those on either side of the political spectrum who vote for the same party every time without ever actually considering current policy, current leadership abilities, past performance, and so on?

    • TS says:

      07:56am | 20/02/12

      Little depresses me more than knowing there are people out there who are unable (for whatever reason; the reasons do not matter) to read. Just the thought sends a devastating sinking feeling to the pit of my stomach.

      Reply

    • Wynston Cruso says:

      12:08pm | 20/02/12

      The most illiterate people I know are doing really well. Having not finished high school and barely able to spell their own names, they are now earning almost 200k per year in the mines. It’s this that depresses me, because I’m still paying off a degree with my wage that is a tiny fraction of theirs, while all this time I could have made a fortune with little to no effort. However, I’d rather be smart and struggling than a loaded dumbass.

    • Kika says:

      01:56pm | 20/02/12

      Your last sentence Wynston reminds me of something my Dad said to a Cop once… “I’d rather be a smart-as-s than a dumb-a-ss”. And yeah he spent the night in the lock up for that comment.

      But it’s true. It’s kind of strange how in a few years those without university degrees will be the millionaires. Degrees don’t mean much these days unless you’ve done something relevant and mandatory for your work, such as a specialisation in engineering or science etc.

    • stephen says:

      08:08am | 20/02/12

      It’s important children learning to read and write with ease and skill, but it is very important, too, that they learn to speak and express themselves with a wide vocabulary, and to be able to say what they mean.
      Public speaking was a subject at my high school.
      I needed lessons on the technical aspects of speech - pronunciation, and so forth - and the subsequent confidence it gave me, even when my delivery was not 100%, was memorable.

      Having the depth of thought inherent in reading and writing courses will not necessarily, on their own, assist students with the ability to think standing, as it were.
      The lessons of speaking, as performance, is imperative at a young age, and possibly before 10 years of age.

      Reply

    • PG says:

      08:34am | 20/02/12

      A lot of parents fail in their responsibility to their children. They seem to think it’s up to the school to teach their children everything. What happens in the early years before school starts is just as important, if not more important, than what happens at school. We started reading to my son every night in his first year. When he start learning to read, we would get him to read to us every night. They learn more than just how to read when they read books! He is above the average reading, spelling, comprehension ability only because we didn’t just rely on the school to teach him. Do people think a few hours at school will magically teach a child everything?

      Reply

    • Kika says:

      08:53am | 20/02/12

      I agree… however it’s hard not to neglect some things when the parents are both working and busy too.

      Yep - my parents did the same with my sister and I. Read to us from babies and we never ever had a reading problem and we’re always top of our class.

    • N says:

      10:54am | 20/02/12

      Kika - it is not hard to do even when both parents work and are busy. My sister and her husband both work at jobs that are quite demanding time wise. They have however made a point of getting both their kids involved in books and make them practice their reading every night. The kids are 4 and 6 and both read very well due to this. The way they manage this is that the kids are not allowed to watch hours of TV. Reading time is 30 mins so the tv is turned off after the news is done.

    • Josephine says:

      11:13am | 20/02/12

      Neither of my parents had English as their first language (Italian migrants). My father did finish primary school but mum had to leave at 8 years of age to help at home. They didn’t read to me nor did they help me with homework. But they did want me to do well in school . In primary school, I was always near the top of the class in reading. In highschool I was in the top percentile in the statewide test for english in NSW high schools. In my case, it was definitely my education & teachers at Catholic schools (the poor man’s version of private school in the western suburbs). And I still love reading.

    • Kika says:

      08:39am | 20/02/12

      I would agree with those figures. In my job I often come across people who can’t read or write. They never say it, but they will make excuse after excuse as to why they can’t submit their statement or help us in getting the information we need for this that or the other. The majority of them would be older men in the baby boomer generation who in the old days would have missed out on a hands on focused teacher (my Dad can remember being in a class of over 60 kids and 1 teacher sitting at their desk in their achievement rank, top kid at the front, bottom kid at the back like that would spur the kids at the back to try harder and get the teachers attention… for good things rather than getting their attention to get the cane for something… but I digress)

      Most of these older men are in unqualified trades.

      I’d be surprised if kids today were still falling through the cracks in the rates that they used to. Teaching has improved in leaps and bounds since the 50
      s and 60’s though it can still do some improvement.

      Again.. comparing us with Scandinavia is like comparing apples and oranges. 1) They have low population 2) They have abundant resource and wealth 3) Because they have a lower population they can spread the tax around and INVEST in public services like investing in teachers and schools and making sure their kids get a good education.  Most people here seem adverse to having to pay any tax and would prefer their governments to stock pile the cash instead of investing where its needed.

      Madness. We’re the 51st state of America for sure.

      Reply

    • Bertrand says:

      09:56am | 20/02/12

      “1) They have low population 2) They have abundant resource and wealth”

      Um…...

    • Kika says:

      10:10am | 20/02/12

      Um what?

      1) We ENCOURAGE people to breed more and more instead of keeping or population lower
      2) WE ALSO have abundant resources

      There’s no excuse as to why we can’t have a good education system other than the populace and the private sphere being unwilling to pay tax, and governments having to pander to the fools out there who think they are only there to stockpile cash.

    • jase says:

      12:00pm | 20/02/12

      The only reason most people are adverse to paying tax is because the government wastes it.

      I don’t mind paying tax for things that I use, what sh*ts me when paying tax is that some 40% of the revenue goes towards welfare or because I am outside of the means testing I automatically become disqualified.

      If the government directed half of its welfare expenditure into infrastructure, health and education we would live in a world class society.

    • Kika says:

      12:40pm | 20/02/12

      I agree Jase. But we had a forum in here last week about the medicare surcharge and lots of higher end income people were complaining that they may have to fork out more in tax because of some proposed changes to the threshold. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that the more money you make, the more tax you pay in line with what others earn and pay which equates to a system which keeps our country rolling.

      The mining tax is an example too. Scandinavian countries have been taxing their oil companies and EVERYBODY substantially for a long long time so they can afford the good lifestyle and public services they receive. Here we want our cake and eat it along with our baby bonus and healthcare subsidies on a plate.

    • MK says:

      09:08am | 20/02/12

      I’m a teacher. I have two kids ages 4 and 6. What I’m amazed about is that the kindergartens don’t teach letters or numbers. From my experience the kids that come to school knowing most letters kick on so much faster with their reading. They are a lot more confident with their literacy in general and this carries them through life. My other big issue I have is the amount of open plan schools that are popping up. They are noisy, create distractions and they just don’t work. Too many things going on, too many naughty kids and we are expected to compete with China and other asian countries where kids are disciplined, sit in rows and have parents that back the teachers, not parents that back the students like here. In going forwards we are so backwards.  Bring back the single classroom.

      Reply

    • Kika says:

      10:19am | 20/02/12

      Is that Montessori?

    • MK says:

      01:23pm | 20/02/12

      No Kiki, I’m talking about the state school system here in Victoria. We now have a lot of noisy open plan classrooms where you can’t even think let alone learn.  Thanks for asking.

    • amy says:

      10:07am | 20/02/12

      realy?

      in this day and age people cant read? even when we are reading alot, txts the internet and such, I find it hard to belive

      Reply

    • Kika says:

      10:35am | 20/02/12

      ROFL.. totes.

    • Redeker Plan says:

      11:20am | 20/02/12

      yeh its all alot of hyperbowl

    • Ben C says:

      12:01pm | 20/02/12

      @ amy

      Please tell me the structure and spelling of your comment is merely a mockery of “text speak”.

    • amy says:

      12:26pm | 20/02/12

      @Ben C

      yes….yes it is…

    • Jane2 says:

      10:51am | 20/02/12

      @DP. This article effectively shows your lack of knowledge about literacy.

      Illiteracy does not mean a lack of comprehension or a limitation to life. I have worked with some very intelligent illiterates. They buy homes, manage money, function in every way like every one else. I even know one who runs his own successful business. The only thing they cant do is read.

      I agree these are probably at the upper level of the illiteracy range where they have the inteligence to counter their disability and they own up to their disability and saying things like “sorry but I am not signing this untill I get someone to look over it” [I wish more “literate” people would do this instead of pretending they understand it or have read it and simply sign]. The business owner has a very good secretary who handles the correspondence and the bookings for him, an accountant to handle the books etc…really not very different from literate businessmen.

      Illiteracy is a disability but it only limits someone’s life if they allow it to. The examples you have given are those of people who allow their disability to limit them, no different from the one armed man who says “I have one arm therefore I cant do this this and this”, instead of “I may have only one arm but I can still do it, I just need to learn a new way of doing it”

      Lets remember that it was only about 100 years ago that compulsary schooling came into existance, although with no punishment for non-attendence many kids still missed out, and yet humans have managed to function as productive members of society for thousands of years before then. We even had architects and scientists who were fundamentally illiterate as they could not read or write the language spoken in their countries.

      There are also many reasons for illiteracy. For some it is the education system failed them (or they failed the system by not wanting to learn), for others severe dyslexia is the cause, for others still they have language illiteracy, they can read and write in their birth language but are illiterate in English. Just remember that if you moved to China you would be effectively illiterate regardless of how much education you have.

      Reply
    • Daniel Piotrowski

      Daniel Piotrowski says:

      11:11am | 20/02/12

      @Jane2

      Hey, look good points re: disability - that just wasn’t the approach that the people I talked to put across from me.

    • LostinPerth says:

      11:30am | 20/02/12

      @Jane2 - I would disagree strongly with your statement that “Illiteracy is a disability “. The reasons behind illiteracy may include a disability eg dyslexia or autism, but being illiterate is not the same as being disabled. Or are you suggesting that all children are disabled until someone teaches them to read?

      I think you are missing the point, it is not about how well people get around being illiterate when they can afford accountants and lawyers. It is about not being able to read, write or do basic maths. I haver met many men in the late 40’s to 60’s who are illiterate and a surprising number end up with criminal records or are homeless. If they cannot read or write well enough to fill out a Centrelink form or apply for a job or training,  then prison or the streets become the two main options for many.

      Children should not be advanced through school if they cannot meet the criteria appropriate for advancement. Chalkies’ and the massive departments that support them’ should worry less about getting pay rises, more holidays and student-free days and more about teaching the children. If they cant do it, find another job instead of blaming others.

      Reply

    • Wynston Cruso says:

      12:19pm | 20/02/12

      Dumb lazy people have more kids. Case closed, you’re welcome.

      smile

      Reply

    • kitteh says:

      12:24pm | 20/02/12

      I taught at uni a few years ago. It was surprising to see that some students didn’t really grasp the concept of reading, or even felt that it was something that should be expected of them. I’m not talking about reams of recommended textbooks - I’m talking about reading the BASIC instructions provided in tests or outlines, i.e. ‘Answer in the space provided below’ or ‘Give two specific examples’ or ‘Due on Friday the 22nd’. And when I pointed this out to them, they would often react with anger, and claim that ‘I hadn’t made it clear enough’. The instructions were listed in short documents with terms that were very difficult to misinterpret; they simply hadn’t read them properly, if at all.

      Were they functionally illiterate? I don’t think so. Was I a rotten teacher? My reviews from other students didn’t suggest that. I think some of it comes down to our increasingly ‘I-want-it-but-it-shouldn’t-involve-any-real-effort’ society. There was this expectation that everything should be presented in a fun and simple manner that didn’t require independent thought, and if they didn’t get it, then it was the instructor’s fault. This completely goes against the whole purpose of tertiary education - to provide the tools, test the ability to grasp concepts and reward those that go beyond the basics.

      Unlike many in the teritary sector, I don’t think you can blame the primary and secondary school system. Sure, there are bad teachers. Sure, students with genuine issues such as dyslexia are still neglected. But for the most part the teachers are grappling with the new and misguided notion that learning must be fun, fun, fun 100% of the time. And if a kid doesn’t want to do something - e.g. read the printed word - the teacher gets harangued for not ‘engaging the kid in a way that’s tailored for them’.  This is completely unrealistic and it simply isn’t the way the world works, but it explains why some students get to uni and are enraged that everything isn’t geared to their exact interests or experience.

      As other posters have pointed out, not everything can be dumbed down to a layman’s level - partly because some ideas are complicated, but partly because if you spend your time explaining every.single.tiny.concept, then you won’t have time to cover what you need to. It’s not fair to anyone that has made the effort if you spend the bulk of your time pandering to people that haven’t. This doesn’t just apply to teaching, it applies across the professions. It isn’t a lawyer’sor doctor’s job to imbue you with everything they learned at university and work in half an hour - if it were that easy, why would the job exist? Do some research, read a bit, ask for clarification rather than the Cliffs Notes version.

      I do think there’s a huge difference between struggling with reading and not being bothered. I too have known brilliant people who are unable to read; they have had to develop their other faculties to almost superhuman levels in order to cope. Like it or not, we are a reading world, and it is very unlikely to change. We’re not falling behind other developed countries because we’re stupid. It’s because we’re lazy.

      Reply

    • daf says:

      05:34pm | 09/03/12

      Couldn’t agree more.  Well said.

    • Gidgee says:

      12:29pm | 20/02/12

      I know a man who was hauled before a Magistrate for some fool act on his part: the Magistrate said “before I sentence you I feel driven to ask have you any sense of remorse in you?”

      The fellow was illiterate and had no idea what the word “remorse” meant so the poor bastard replied “no, none of that, your honour”.

      The Magistrate was shocked and accordingly loaded up the penalty to reflect the lack of feeling the accused had, to him, so obviously shown.

      Gidgee.

      Reply

    • Kika says:

      12:37pm | 20/02/12

      LOL!!! Hahaha. Not funny for the poor old chap… but amusing to say the least.

    • Jane2 says:

      01:05pm | 20/02/12

      I recently had a chat with an 80 yo who used many words I have heard of but had no idea of the meaning of as they are no longer used, does this make me a dumb ass illiterate?

    • Johnno says:

      01:21pm | 20/02/12

      I used to manage a factory of blue collar workers in the Far North.  I have never recoverd from asking one of my crew to assist with loading a van with bags labelled with tags for their destination when he turned and simply said “I can’t read”.  He was 32 years old.  This poor bugger slipped through every safety net known to emerge from school (or dodging school) completely illiterate.  Imagine living in the 21st century and being unable to read a simple label and hence unable to even load a van competently.  It is as heartbreaking as it is unbeleivable.

      Reply

    • samantha says:

      02:43pm | 20/02/12

      It is sad Johnno.  I have noticed that many unemployed people are unable to read or write enough to hold down a “modern” job that relies on workers reading booklets, manuals, Health and Safety signs etc.  I have also noticed that they are often sent to do Government funded courses that do little to help them to get work.  They beg to be given the opportunity to do literacy courses, but no one is listening.  Sometimes you get more value for money if you ask the person you wish to help what it is that they need, rather than bringing in an expert to “tell” them what they need.

    • Daniele says:

      02:23pm | 20/02/12

      Yes, it’s really sad - but then, so what ?  There will always be people in our community who simply don’t / won’t / can’t achieve even basic levels of common sense, let alone basic literacy, regardless of whatever system or structure we put in place.

      Reply

    • rodney allsworth says:

      02:45pm | 20/02/12

      we wonder why we have such illiteracy, for the last 2 decades we have complained that the schools were to busy teaching -social justice-instead of the basic -3rs-, employers were complaining in the early ninetys about -unskilled and unlearned, job applicants, couldnt even fill out application forms. the teachers union has had far to much-left leaning control- over how OUR CHILDREN- HAVE BEEN TAUGHT AND WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT OVER TO LONG A PERIOD OF TIME, no wonder we have dunder heads roaming the streets, aimless, useless,no inititive,and no respect AND NO SENSE OF PERSONAL RESPONSABILITY, for those who do have all that they have to carry the cost of maintaining their lifestyle.

      rod qld

      Reply

    • Utopia Boy says:

      07:22pm | 20/02/12

      And yet virtually every child has a mobile phone! And they spend all day texting!
      Sure, it’s not really English they are using, but they can communicate - with each other at least.

      I’d rather see them in school though.
      Much of the responsibility HAS to lie with parents. Parents are the ones with the most influence over young children, if they are being “good” parents.

      Reply

    • Geronimo says:

      06:17am | 21/02/12

      An habitually lying Howard once declared in a 7.30 Report, “illiteracy is not a problem in Australia Kerry”, therein proving the fallacy by ‘winning’ the next election.

      Reply

    • A Teacher's Husband says:

      07:28am | 21/02/12

      These days, kids do not “slip through the system”; they are PUSHED through it, whether they’re ready or not.

      Teachers no longer have the option of keeping kids back a year, because some wannabe dickhead psychologist deemed that it was harmful to a kid’s mental health.

      Also, with the workload teachers carry now, combined with a modern hectic lifestyle, it’s not an option to give kids one-on-one time during breaks or before / after school.

      And don’t get me started on the f***wits who change the curriculum every year to keep themselves in a job!!  Perhaps, if we’d stayed with the system that WORKED, we wouldn’t have this literacy problem in the first place???

      Reply

    • NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

      07:35am | 21/02/12

      Hi Daniel,

      The actual truth about our short comings and inadequacies are always very hard to hear.  Why?  Because it is too painful to hear it from others.  It all begins with awareness and intentions of solving a problem like illiteracy.  The very step first is always admitting that we have a problem to begin with.

      Very young mothers from non English speaking backgrounds and some other migrant women will always say that English is a very difficult language to grasp and tackle with.  I guess that there is always a bit of truth to that theory.  My answer to them will almost and always be the same. 

      It is something like “why don’t you try to read books and sing songs with your children”? And I am talking about very basic and kinder garden level English language skills. If we all begin there, it might not seem so difficult after a while and we all have to begin somewhere, right?

      Our public school system may be partly to blame, but ultimately some children will need that extra guidance and support from their parents.  It is also all more about the importance of basic reading and writing as something to add on eventually, all by themselves.

      Somehow, I also feel that that we do need the basic skills in English as well as the strong foundation required to build on in the future, with much less disappointment and heartache.  Kind regards to your editors.

      Reply
 
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