“My biggest worry is that behavioral change is leading to cultural change. As we spend time on our screens, we’re abandoning a value that used to be pretty central to our culture — the idea that you should work hard to improve your capacity for wisdom and judgment all the days of your life. That education, including lifelong out-of-school learning, is really valuable.”
"What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen. They are being deprived of the ability to choose—for no real reason or benefit."
https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/literacy-crisis-reading-comprehension-college.html
"Young people won’t, or can’t, read a book. Now democracy is dying. Coincidence?
A viral conversation about the near-death of reading by U.S. college students in the iPhone era reveals a threat to democracy."
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/student-book-reading-declines-20250410.html
For all in the UK - please sign and share this letter set up by Connor Scott-Gardner to show your support for Braille transcription services run by RNIB which are being cut | “RNIB has scrapped its free personal braille transcription service, leaving blind people to cover the cost themselves. Large print is still free, this isn't equality! Sign the open letter urging RNIB to reverse this decision”
#DisabilityRights #Literacy #Braille #Disability #blind @disability
https://saveourbraille.wordpress.com
In a bit of #history.
> Why the Romans Stopped Reading Books https://www.openculture.com/2025/04/why-the-romans-stopped-reading-books.html
The surge of ai and its ignorance of taste, making things better by adding more, and so on, is correlating with the average lack of consideration for #creation, #art and #artists and global #antiintellectualism ; highlighting global reluctance to partake into any activity requiring to think by oneself. #literacy #criticalthinking #CriticalLiteracy #literacyMatters #ai #artificialintelligence #medialiteracy #populism #facism
@npr @arts-life-npr “The IMLS says it has awarded $266 million in grant funding and research to cultural institutions last year” #libraries #literacy #USPolitics
"Most of our students are functionally illiterate. This is not a joke. By “functionally illiterate” I mean “unable to read and comprehend adult novels by people like Barbara Kingsolver, Colson Whitehead, and Richard Powers.” I picked those three authors because they are all recent Pulitzer Prize winners, an objective standard of “serious adult novel.” Furthermore, I’ve read them all and can testify that they are brilliant, captivating writers; we’re not talking about Finnegans Wake here. But at the same time they aren’t YA, romantasy, or Harry Potter either.
I’m not saying our students just prefer genre books or graphic novels or whatever. No, our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read. They just couldn’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read,2 and most certainly not the attention span to finish. For them to sit down and try to read a book like The Overstory might as well be me attempting an Iron Man triathlon: much suffering with zero chance of success.
Students are not absolutely illiterate in the sense of being unable to sound out any words whatsoever. Reading bores them, though. They are impatient to get through whatever burden of reading they have to, and move their eyes over the words just to get it done. They’re like me clicking through a mandatory online HR training. Students get exam questions wrong simply because they didn't even take the time to read the question properly. Reading anything more than a menu is a chore and to be avoided."
https://hilariusbookbinder.substack.com/p/the-average-college-student-today
Everyone in the United States needs to reread the Constitution, including the Amendments, and the Declaration of Independence.
It doesn't take long.
https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/constitution.pdf
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
"If I have offended any MAGAts with my posts, I apologize. I honestly thought you couldn’t read."
Mississippi, once ranked 49th in #education test scores, is now among the top 20 for 4th grade reading. The state's #literacy reforms offer a model for closing early literacy gaps nationwide. An education policy scholar explains:
https://buff.ly/mzbgZ5X #Edstadon
@VeroniqueB99
I recently read about how over half of the American population is at Level 1 Literacy (Grade 6 or lower). Together with how low the population is in some States, Trump and American political outcomes makes lots of sense in a dark #Absurdist way.
As a retired Canadian teacher (English, Developmental Literacy, Media Literacy, & Special Ed), I am struck with pity, despair, and anger. #America is being barely held together with spit and baling wire. Just how is it still standing? 
#Literacy #LiteracyLevels #LiteracyRates #LiteracyMatters #AmericanLiteracy #Reading #ReadingLevels #AmericanPolitics #AmericanPopulation
All of our beautiful new and like-new children's books are donated by our awesome community of supporters, and we're always looking for Bay Area bookstores, cafes, and other businesses to host our #BookDrop donation stands.
If you know a great spot for a #BookDrop, check the link in bio for details!
Learn more about our mission at #ChildrensBookProject. Check out the link in bio to Give Books, Get Books, Volunteer, and Donate!
Want to #resist ?
Teach someone to read.
Sign up for the LEAF (Literacy and Food Education) community growing initiatives newsletter. https://libraryleaf.ie/ #Libraries #Gardening #Growing #Seeds #Education #Literacy #FreeSeeds #Ireland #SolarPunkSunday #Community #Climate #Sustainability
Grow It Yourself (GIY), "providing resources to help people grow their own food at home, at school and in the community.." https://giy.ie/ #SolarPunkSunday #Gardening #Growing #Seeds #Education #Literacy #FreeSeeds #Ireland #Community #Climate #Sustainability
We're ready for #WorldPoetryDay with wonderful books that help children develop their #LiteracySkills with beautiful and empowering words!
Learn more about our mission at #ChildrensBookProject. Check out the link in bio to Give Books, Get Books, Volunteer, and Donate!
Print exposure impacts grammatical knowledge more than years of schooling. Tan Arda Gedik examines how literacy is a stronger predictor of linguistic abilities than formal education in Turkish speakers. Conventional metrics may not apply universally. 
https://doi.org/10.25189/2675-4916.2025.V6.N2.ID785
#linguistics #literacy #education
