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Has anyone else noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Just as the title asks I've noticed a very sharp increase in people just straight up not comprehending what they're reading.

They'll read it and despite all the information being there, if it's even slightly out of line from the most straightforward sentence structure, they act like it's complete gibberish or indecipherable.

Has anyone else noticed this? Because honestly it's making me lose my fucking mind.

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[–] maltasoron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a difference between simplifying a message and writing at a lower reading comprehension level. I think a lot of accidental incomprehension might just be caused by the reader not being very good at reading English.

In my country (and I think the whole EU), government agencies have to write at a B1 level to make sure official publications and letters are accessible to all citizens. I think that's a good rule of thumb for online conversations as well. (However, writing pleasant prose at B1 level is a whole different beast. Generally, they're not very good at it.)

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good point on catering to those who speak other languages, I hadn't considered that.

So what does a B1 level equate to? I'm assuming it's lower than college level, probably lower that a high school level? Are we talking like middle school, grade school, or something else?

[–] maltasoron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry, didn't get a notification.

Yeah, it's basically at high school level, so most of the adult population should be able to understand it without much issue.

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

No worries, thanks for the update. Yeah that makes sense, we would hope that most people make it through high school, although the way they're going in some parts of the US by gutting the education and white-washing history (they're actually trying to teach kids that slavery was a GOOD thing!!!) I feel like in a few years a high school education here is going to be meaningless.