http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/literacy/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/New-forms-of-language-actually-make-us-more-liter8/ The computer has cleaned up poor handwriting by eliminating it. Everyone can now write in a legible font and everyone, now, can spell. If they can’t, they’ve been ignoring the wavy red underscore on any questionable word. The handwritten letter and the polite thank-you card have fled to the outskirts. For some, this is a cause for lament. A letter in ink meant someone had gone to a deal of trouble, for you. They have been replaced with the email or the SMS, but the news is that people are writing more. We are also reading more. We may be reading junk, but we are more literate than ever. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/New-forms-of-language-actually-make-us-more-liter8/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/New-forms-of-language-actually-make-us-more-liter8/#item8410 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/minding-your-peas-and-qs/ The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/minding-your-peas-and-qs/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/minding-your-peas-and-qs/#item8184 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-big-cost-for-a-small-saving/ When historians write about the National Year of Reading 2012, they will remember a time when the nation embraced the beauty of the book, spread the word about the benefits of reading, encouraged the pastime among children… Oh, and binned the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. “Newman!” Campbell Newman is fast turning me into Jerry Seinfeld. And if this act of aggression towards the arts is an indication of the LNP’s stance on the importance of culture in Queensland (now the only state in Australia without a state-sponsored literary prize) then his tenure as Premier will be characterised by the same catchphrase as Seinfeld, by me at least. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-big-cost-for-a-small-saving/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-big-cost-for-a-small-saving/#item8181 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/reading-off-an-ipad-is-nothing-like-reading-a-book/ “Nearly half the population struggles without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. Forty-six per cent of Australians can’t read newspapers, follow a recipe, make sense of timetables, or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.” So begins the “why we exist” page of the National Year of Reading 2012 website. This staggering statistic suggests the literacy issue in Australia is so urgent that emoticons could one day become functional rather than fashionable. A friend recently asked me to translate a cover letter from Italian into English. The Gen Y jobseeker ended the formal letter to a prospective employer with a smiley. I couldn’t translate the smiley and didn’t charge her for it, though I felt guilty charging her at all given she didn’t get the job and the smiley soon became a frowny. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/reading-off-an-ipad-is-nothing-like-reading-a-book/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/reading-off-an-ipad-is-nothing-like-reading-a-book/#item7809 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/you-cant-read-between-the-lines-if-you-cant-read/ What would it be like to be illiterate in Australia today? 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. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/you-cant-read-between-the-lines-if-you-cant-read/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/you-cant-read-between-the-lines-if-you-cant-read/#item7799 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/writing-the-wrongs-of-literacy-in-australia/ Literacy is a right to which every Australian child is entitled, so it’s pertinent to consider on International Literacy Day (today, September 8) why some Australian students are still failing to achieve a minimum standard of literacy. A comparison of Australia’s performance against other OECD countries would appear to demonstrate that Australian students are on the whole performing well at school. However, a closer look reveals students from low-income families are tending to fall behind their peers. A higher proportion of socio-economically disadvantaged students in Australia are failing to achieve minimum standards in reading, writing, spelling and grammar, with the result that by 15 years of age Australian students from the lowest socioeconomic group in Australia are in general performing almost three years below that of students from the highest socio-economic group in reading. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/writing-the-wrongs-of-literacy-in-australia/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/writing-the-wrongs-of-literacy-in-australia/#item6670 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/please-explain-this-elitist-insecurity-over-language/ Type the words “Steve Fielding” and “idiot” into Google and you get 14,300 hits. Many of these entries came in the past few days, most of them on blog sites, many of which have one author and as many readers, as the nation’s smarty-pants pundits seized on Fielding’s “fiskal” fiasco as proof that the guy is as dumb as a box of rocks. Now I’m not going to pretend that my reaction upon seeing the footage of his doorstop spelling bee wasn’t one of unbridled hilarity. I almost spat my coffee out. And when I’d regained my composure, I called my workmates over to ask if they too had seen the Family First Senator blundering his way through a doorstop where, after referring three times to “physical” policy instead of “fiscal”, he insisted he knew what he was talking about by offering to spell the word.   penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/please-explain-this-elitist-insecurity-over-language/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/please-explain-this-elitist-insecurity-over-language/#item1186 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/almost-half-of-australians-have-problems-with-literacy/ If you are reading this piece you’re probably not among the close to half of the population with literacy and numeracy skills below the required levels to meet the demands of everyday life and work. This figure comes from the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills survey undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2006 and while not up-to-the-minute, is worth reflecting on in light of last week’s National Literacy and Numeracy Week. Specifically the survey revealed that between 46% and 70% of adults in Australia had poor or very poor skills across one or more of the five skill domains of prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy, problem-solving and health literacy. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/almost-half-of-australians-have-problems-with-literacy/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/almost-half-of-australians-have-problems-with-literacy/#item1169 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The late Josie Hankin was by all accounts a much-loved lady who led a full and happy life. Sadly she is now at peas. That’s what the card on one her wreaths said. Not just “peas” but “Rast in peas”. The florist in question, Bunch After Bunch in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond, was unmoved by the complaints from Ms Hankin’s grieving niece, whose transcribed bereavement message came with the added insult of referring to “Anty” Josie. The owner, who gave his name only as Arthur, said he employed several people for whom English was a second language. Regardless, he said it was the job of his staff job to sell flowers, not spell properly. “We supply flowers - good flowers,” Arthur said. “We are not card writers.”