Twenty per cent of grads struggle with literacy: study
It's not that Kyle Friedman can't read and write.
The first-year new media student did a Hooked-on-Phonics-type program growing up. He had a tutor until he was in high school.
But there's no getting around the fact that Friedman's literacy skills remain at what he dubs "below average" for a university student.
"I never really got to a strong point where I would read... like leisure reading," he said.
According to a report published in February by the Canadian Council on Learning, 20 per cent of university graduates fell below Level 3 on the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey.
Level 3 indicates the minimum standard of reading and writing skills needed to deal with everyday life and hold down a job.
That number is expected to increase to 24 per cent by 2031.
Friedman's lucky enough to have already learned strategies to get around any literacy issues. For example, if he's reading large passages of text for a class, he'll break it up over a few days to make it easier to manage.
"If it's a lot, it's a little overwhelming," he said.
He graduated from high school with an 81 per cent average and never doubted he would make it to university. But seemingly few Ryerson students who still need help take advantage of the resources provided by the university. Lucie Moussu, director of the Writing Centre, has not seen anyone with serious literacy issues use the Centre's services.
"Maybe students who struggle the most have a hard time coming here because they feel a little bit more like they are perceived as the losers or something," she said. "I don't know. I hope not."
It's also difficult to evaluate whether a student needs more intensive help over a 50-minute tutoring session, especially when many only use the Centre once.
But some students don't even realize they could be writing better. A study released last Monday from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty revealed that university professors feel like their first-year students "expect success without the requisite effort." These results came from an online survey of about 2,000 professors and librarians.
Sometimes, said Moussu, students ask tutors to check their grammar but ignore other suggestions to improve their work to A-grade level.
"Often they lack the self-reflective skills, in the sense that they write and they think it's OK," said Moussu. The few students who seek help are often multilingual, trying to find ways to express their thoughts in another language, Moussu added.
Marju Toomsalu, English as an additional language (EAL) programs director at Ryerson, pointed out that multilingual students are already very literate in their native tongues.
"Some of them are very good writers," she said.
But since the Canadian Council on Learning report used tests only conducted in English or French, the results can't distinguish between newcomers with truly low levels of literacy or those who just need more training.
David Olson, literacy expert and professor emeritus at OISE at the University of Toronto, has trouble believing that people are becoming less literate.
"There is the indication that literacy is higher than it was a century ago because there are more graduates from high school and university," said Olson.
While more people are graduating than before, education still has to adapt to suit the needs of a broader population. It's not just the whiz kids getting degrees anymore, said Olson.
However, students read and write a lot less than they used to, he said. Instead, they're using computers and logging online.
"You might say what educators believe to be important is students should write a lot more and they should talk a lot more in schools and in colleges than they do at present," explained Olson. He suggests that every student write a little more, even poetry.
"Any kind of writing... because it's through writing that you really improve your literacy skills," said Olson.
Comments
Anonymous, 11 months ago said:
Do you really think you are encouraging people who need help with literacy by suggesting they can't read the headline? Obviously, the 20% CAN in fact read the one line sentence on your cover, and you make them seem moronic and their issues trivial by using that line. Reading one sentence on the cover of the Eyeopener is obviously much easier than reading dense university material that many students may struggle with. Now you've just gone and stigmatized those people, told them they're idiots if they need help through your cover.
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Anonymous, 10 months ago said:
Performance in sports and work is measured in achieved results. Fans and coaches recognize and reward those who pass accurately, especially under pressure, score goals and effectively defend their teams. Those who cut costs, develop new products and increase sales also get rewards. In senior academia rewards come to those who research, publish and teach well. However, those students who do not work hard, do not produce effective essays and do not study still expect not only passing grades, but help for their supine indifference to academic requirements. Every excuse for the resulting lack of success is bandied about. Yet a century ago authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or Dickens before him, published their works in serial form in newspapers to be read enthusiastically by patrons, the majority of whom had not finished high school. Now, such works are often beyond those attending university. Why? Quite simply; TV, computers, parents who themselves do not read, low standards and low expectations in contemporary schools, student laziness and parental indulgence of this behaviour. There is a solution. Less sympathy and more work. Besides, sympathy resides between sh*t and syphilis in the dictionary.
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