Average college freshman reads at 7th grade level (1 Viewer)

[Lutherman2112]

Anyone read The Hunger Games? That's a 5th grade level book.

 

[jhib]

My wife read Divergent last month which means she reads at a 5th grade level and she is a U of M graduate, so Michigan must be a pretty crappy school and my wife is a moron.

Don't forget that her mom and dad were obviously bad parents who didn't read to her and weren't invested in her education.

 

[Prince Myshkin]

My wife read Divergent last month which means she reads at a 5th grade level and she is a U of M graduate, so Michigan must be a pretty crappy school and my wife is a moron.

Don't forget that her mom and dad were obviously bad parents who didn't read to her and weren't invested in her education.

They were probably just teaching to the test

 

[renesauz]

As someone who went back to college in their 40's, I can attest to this. Kids coming out of High School now are nowhere near as adept at reading/writing as they were 25 years ago or earlier. I was astonished at how poorly most of my classmates could read and write.

My oldest recently graduated from HS with honors, but can't write worth a darn and stumbles reading anything out loud. A big part of the problem is that kids aren't forced to read much in school anymore. Many school systems strapped for cash don't even hand out textbooks to the kids. My middle child is a senior about to graduate, and she's written ONE book report in the last 2 years.

Book report? No one should be writing those past elementary school.

There's an awful lot of writing necessary in college. WRiting that's a heck of a lot easier to do if one has actually practiced, you know, WRITING SOMETHING!

 

[Ilov80s]

As someone who went back to college in their 40's, I can attest to this. Kids coming out of High School now are nowhere near as adept at reading/writing as they were 25 years ago or earlier. I was astonished at how poorly most of my classmates could read and write.

My oldest recently graduated from HS with honors, but can't write worth a darn and stumbles reading anything out loud. A big part of the problem is that kids aren't forced to read much in school anymore. Many school systems strapped for cash don't even hand out textbooks to the kids. My middle child is a senior about to graduate, and she's written ONE book report in the last 2 years.

Book report? No one should be writing those past elementary school.

There's an awful lot of writing necessary in college. WRiting that's a heck of a lot easier to do if one has actually practiced, you know, WRITING SOMETHING!

I think he meant book report as in summary and review of book isn't the most efficient use of a writing assignment.

 

[cstu]

So...bigvoluminous words?

Reading level is established based on usually either the FROG or Slosson Scale. I think most have abandoned FROG for Slosson.

The old FROG was simpler. It was basically take a paragraph, then count the number of words in the paragraph, then count the number of syllables in the paragraph and there is a relationship between number of words/syllables.

When the number of syllables is close to the number of words, it indicates very low reading comprehension since the vast majority of words in the paragraph would be one syllable.

In the inverse, when the number of syllables out-number the number of words, then you can assume William F. Buckley wrote the paragraph.

Words with more syllables include assimilation; conscientiousness; creativity; humiliation; similarity; incredulity; perpendicular as those are 5-syllable words.

8-syllable words would be like "interdifferentiated" and then of course there's antidisestablishmentarianism.

Typically you ask a few questions about the paragraph to assess whether someone understood it or not and that's in part how you establish the scare.

I think Slosson goes to Level 19 which is post-graduate studies.

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/education/1091994-embarrassing-question-how-reading-level-established.html#ixzz3OUKPh3Ey

 

[cstu]

As someone who went back to college in their 40's, I can attest to this. Kids coming out of High School now are nowhere near as adept at reading/writing as they were 25 years ago or earlier. I was astonished at how poorly most of my classmates could read and write.

My oldest recently graduated from HS with honors, but can't write worth a darn and stumbles reading anything out loud. A big part of the problem is that kids aren't forced to read much in school anymore. Many school systems strapped for cash don't even hand out textbooks to the kids. My middle child is a senior about to graduate, and she's written ONE book report in the last 2 years.

Book report? No one should be writing those past elementary school.

There's an awful lot of writing necessary in college. WRiting that's a heck of a lot easier to do if one has actually practiced, you know, WRITING SOMETHING!

There are two types of writing:

- Clear, concise, grammatically and syntactically correct writing

- Creative, literary writing

The first is a must-have ability for college, the second not so much unless you want to be a professional writer.