Hi All, Maybe it isn't the technology that is causing a decline in literacy skills development but a dearth and lack of support for library services in schools not only in the US but around the world. Kids learn to read using concrete objects first (to do with the nature of learning to read) and school libraries are where they not only learn to maintain and expland their literacy skills, but they also acquire a reading habit. No qualified teacher librarian, leads to poor resource selection and no reading or literature/literacy promotion across all levels of the school.
A reminder - computers and not compensatory. If students have poor traditional literacy skills, they will not be able to use a computer effectively or efficiently to gain information either. Reading is about both the deconstruction of printed language and the construction of meaning/understandings. Computers actually require the user to have a range of other literacy skills on top of the traditional reading, writing, listening and viewing. Falling literacy skills in students coming into tertiary education are a reflection of the way many educators and the media have tried to divorce the acquisition and maintenance of literacy skills from print resources and the library in schools. Too often the first place for funding and staff cuts is the school library. After all, why do we need a library? And yet all the research indicates that students who read widely and who read fiction, also have advanced literacy skills and are more successful academically (PISA 2000). It is about time that we stopped expecting the Internet and technology to provide all the answers. It is not a cure, but a toolkit. At this point in time the only real major issue with technology from an information science perspective is that it is steadily increasinbg the number of formats and delivery modes for information/fiction and nonfiction. In our profession we have issues with being able to cater for this expanding toolkit, preservation and longterm storage of information and basic access in a world where good information is fast becoming an expensive commodity. Until we move beyond this fixation with the toolkit (technologies) and once again value learning/education and what libraries have to offer, fund and staff school libraries appropriately, literacy skills will continue to fall or at best, remain static. :) BC Convenor for the Transforming Information and Learning Conference http://www.chs.ecu.edu.au/TILC Barbara Combes, Lecturer School of Computer and Information Science Edith Cowan University, Perth Western Australia Ph: (08) 9370 6072 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation." Walter Cronkite This email is confidential and intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify me immediately by return email or telephone and destroy the original message. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dr. Steve Eskow Sent: Monday, 19 December 2005 4:41 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: RE: [DDN] Literacy level falls for US college graduates (fwd) Here is an important conclusion from a Department of Education official: "Grover J. Whitehurst, director of an institute within the Department of Education that helped to oversee the test, said he believed that the literacy of college graduates had dropped because a rising number of young Americans in recent years had spent their free time watching television and surfing the Internet" If that is so it would appear that the new communication technologies can become the problem rather than the solution. An article in this Sunday's New York Times by David Carr, a new owner of a video iPod, seems to confirm thehy ypothesis that those who own the newest digital technologies tend to move away from the reading of complex materials that develops and sharpens the skills that are declining. Carr reports that since owning his new device he spends far less time reading and now uses that time to watch episodes of television dramas. If we think that the ability to read complex materials is a requirement for competence in our time, do we need to think about the part that the new technologies play in either deepening or eroding those skills? Can the computer improve complex reading skills? Or will it inevitably lead to their decline? Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Andrew Pleasant Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 10:47 AM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: Re: [DDN] Literacy level falls for US college graduates (fwd) Hi all, Listened to the original webcast of this data release. A couple observations ... We now have perhaps a clue why it took over 2 years and multiple delays of the planned release date since the end of field work to learn anything from this new data (and there is still more - e.g. about health literacy - that has yet to be released) as it doesn't look like the 'education president' and No Child Left Behind have moved any child or adult forward in terms of literacy skills. In fact, across all levels of education -- prose literacy skills declined in the past ten years. That is true for people with a graduate degree and for those with less than or some high school. For the other two 'types' of literacy the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) measured, across education levels (from none or some high school to graduate degree) document literacy declined or remained unchanged and quantitative literacy remained unchanged. The administration spin tried to present the overall aggregate movement in average literacy rates as the most important point. However, any raise in 'average;' literacy level was created only because more people have a higher level education now than ten years ago (because of the way they analyzed the data so far, it is problematic to actually combine the prose, document, and quantitative literacy scores to determine an 'average'). But remember, people in this study with a graduate degree dropped 13 points in prose literacy and 17 points in document literacy as compared to those with a similar level of education ten years ago. What does all this mean? To my thinking, the shift in literacy rates the early look at the new data gives us is easily interpretable as a function of pushing more people through more years of schooling while actually teaching them less of the skills they need to survive and succeed in the world. In digital divide terms, it is entirely probably the new assessment will show that in terms of literacy the divide between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' has increased or, at the least, stayed the same (though we can't yet get to the original data to run that type of a complete analysis). Best wishes, Andrew Pleasant On 12/16/05, David Rosen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Andy and others, > > Thanks for posting this. > > It is important to note that the interpretation that NCES -- which > released the study -- gives to the decline in literacy for Hispanics > is increased immigration by Hispanic adults who may not speak English > or who may have had little schooling in their country of origin. > > There are some other findings worth noting: > > 1) Overall : No significant increases in U.S. adult literacy from > 1992-2003. > 2) Quantitative literacy skills are higher. > 3) The results show a strong correlation between literacy and > education level attainment > 4) As literacy increases so does the % of the population which is > fully employed (Of course this would also depend on the economy.) > 5) Median weekly earnings also go up with higher literacy levels. > > David J. Rosen > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > On Dec 16, 2005, at 3:19 PM, Andy Carvin wrote: > > > From the NY Times... -andy > > > > Literacy level falls for US college graduates > > > > The average American college graduate's literacy in English declined > > significantly over the past decade, according to results of a > > nationwide test released yesterday. The National Assessment of Adult > > Literacy, given in 2003 by the Department of Education, is the > > nation's most important test of how well adult Americans can read. > > The test also found steep declines in the English literacy of > > Hispanics in the United States, and significant increases among > > blacks and Asians. > > > > When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the > > nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning > > that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw > > complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the > > graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. There were 26.4 > > million college graduates. > > > > <snip> > > > > Among blacks and Asians, English literacy increased from 1992 to > > 2003. About 29 percent of blacks scored at either the intermediate > > or proficient levels in 1992, but in 2003, those rose to 33 percent. > > The percentage of blacks demonstrating "below basic" > > literacy declined to 24 percent from 30 percent. Asians scoring at > > either the intermediate or proficient levels rose to 54 percent from > > 45 percent in 1992. > > > > The same period saw big declines in Hispanics' English reading > > skills. In 1992, 35 percent of Hispanics demonstrated "below basic" > > English literacy, but by 2003 that segment had swelled to 44 > > percent. And at the higher-performing end of the literacy scale, the > > proportion of Hispanics demonstrating intermediate or proficient > > English skills dropped to 27 percent from 33 percent in 1992. > > > > <snip> > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/education/16literacy.html > > > > > > -- > > ----------------------------------- > > Andy Carvin > > Program Director > > EDC Center for Media & Community > > acarvin @ edc . org > > http://www.digitaldivide.net > > http://katrina05.blogspot.com > > Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com > > ----------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > > DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org > > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > > To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide- > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the > > message. > > _______________________________________________ > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
