High School Students Are Reading Books At 5th-Grade Levels | Hacker News Reader

High School Students Are Reading Books At 5th-Grade Levels

huffingtonpost.com

2 pointsmaxprogram4 comments

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I think this report is incredibly misleading. It may be a fact that the avg. reading level of the top 40 high school books is 5.3, but that doesn't really mean much. The most important sentence in the article is glazed over:

"While readability formulas can't say much for the depth of literary aspects within a text, they offer objective measures of vocabulary and sentence complexity."

So, in other words, the less "readable" a book is, the higher the competency of the person reading it. Doesn't make much sense.

As a big reader myself, I think it's this kind of cargo-cult thinking (higher readability level > better readers) that leads people, and teenagers in particular, to dislike reading. I know that was the case with me when I went to school. Now I read all the time, but hate books with complicated writing (aka high readibility scores).

Agreed! "Of Mice and Men" is ranked as a grade 4.5 book? "To Kill a Mockingbird" is grade 5.6. "Lord of the Flies" is grade 5.0. These are not books at an elementary school letter. The method used is simply inappropriate, which means the article was published with publicity strongly at the forefront. A real analysis would have shown the change in reading level over time. I and my wife read those books while in our respective high schools in the 1980s/1990s, and a quick search says that non-US high schools do the same.

I'm assuming they're talking both leisure and assigned reading? (I can't imagine schools assigning The Hunger Games, and I don't imagine many students leisurely reading Of Mice and Men.)

Maybe the solution is to push to popularize better books for older audiences? People read The Hunger Games and Harry Potter because they enjoyed them. Lots of early 20s people I know loved the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and while I don't know how complex of a rating it would get, I understand it's considered an "adult novel", and is thought of as smart.

So all we need is popular, smart written, books.

Interesting. I was reading at a high school level when I was in 5th grade. I also read "The hunger games". I've been out of high school for 10+ years.

Is it well below my level? Yes, but it was a good story.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com