Once about Knowledge and knowledge systems, especially knowledge applied to economic development, but since I retired branching into politics, music and whatever catches my attention.
Most US information workers need to read for several hours a day, (and increasingly from computer displays). (Derouzos, 1997) The economic value of wages for workers to spend time reading is therefore over $2 trillion a year. Moreover, over the past 30 years, the difficulty of reading material in US jobs has increased by several grade levels, but the reading proficiency of US students has not changed over this period. The US Department of Labor estimates that poor reading in the workplace costs US businesses over $225 billion a year, in waste, accidents, lost opportunities, and injuries. (Sum, 1999; Sum, Kirsch, & Taggart, 2002).
Although the reading material for the top 70 percent of US jobs is at a 9th grade level, 70 percent of today’s high school seniors cannot read above a 7th grade reading level -- and 30 percent still read no better than a targeted 4th grade reading proficiency level. (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2003) Recently, new Federal programs have emphasized phonemic awareness in the early grades, as a keystone for building reading proficiency. However, as students move through the middle and high school years, the gap between targeted and actual reading proficiency gets wider -- suggesting that additional kinds of reading development are needed.
The widening gap between actual and targeted reading proficiency during middle and high school years also creates a dual dilemma for students and educators: (i) the curriculum must cover increasing amounts of specific content, leaving less time for targeted reading intervention; and (ii) the content itself is presented in larger and more complex texts to be read.
No comments:
Post a Comment