[HN Gopher] Nearly half of teenagers globally cannot read with c...
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Nearly half of teenagers globally cannot read with comprehension
Author : therabbithole
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-12-04 13:56 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ourworldindata.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (ourworldindata.org)
| everdrive wrote:
| For much history, most people were illiterate. Do we necessarily
| have reason to believe that proper reading comprehension is
| something that is available to everyone by virtue of proper
| education alone?
| redundantly wrote:
| Should it be considered 'proper' education if it leaves people
| illiterate?
| sim7c00 wrote:
| if they learn to solve real problems in the real world and it
| helps them, they are more educated than when they started,
| regardless of literacy rates.
| jyunwai wrote:
| Literacy is essential to living in society without getting
| scammed or taken advantage of.
|
| There's a scene in Betty Smith's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"
| that illustrates practical necessity of reading
| comprehension for the average person, where a grandmother
| tells a mother to save enough money over time and make sure
| the granddaughter can read. An excerpt follows:
|
| --
|
| "Will it work, this saving?"
|
| "I swear by the Holy Mother it will."
|
| "Then why haven't you ever saved enough money to buy land?"
|
| "I did. When we first landed, I had a star bank. It took me
| ten years to save that first fifty dollars. I took the
| money in my hand and went to a man in the neighborhood of
| whom it was said that he dealt fairly with people who
| bought land. He showed me a beautiful piece of earth and
| told me in my own language; 'This is thine!' He took my
| money and gave me a paper. I could not read. Later, I saw
| men building the house of another on my land. I showed them
| my paper. They laughed at me with pity in their eyes. It
| was that the land had not been the man's to sell. It was
| ... how do you say it in the English ... a schwindle."
|
| "Swindle."
|
| "Ai. People like us, known as greenhorns from the old
| country, were often robbed by men such as he because we
| could not read. But you have education. First you will read
| on the paper that the land is yours. Only then will you
| pay."
|
| --
|
| Yes, you can certainly be relatively more educated than you
| started by going to school, even if you are not literate by
| the end. But reading comprehension and literacy is a
| crucial skill that has practical value for living a better
| life.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> that illustrates practical necessity of reading
| comprehension for the average person_
|
| Does it? In practice, the average person, even the above
| average person, hell, even the greatest minds, will
| typically seek the services of a lawyer when buying land
| exactly because they lack the comprehension necessary to
| avoid the tale you tell. And once you are outsourcing
| comprehension, literacy doesn't really buy you anything.
| redundantly wrote:
| > The average person, even the above average person
|
| So, people who are likely to be literate will seek out
| assistance when they realise they don't understand
| something? One might wonder if their literacy has
| anything to do with that...
| 9rx wrote:
| Those who are illiterate, at least of those who could
| become literate, realize they don't understand something
| right from the get-go. It turns out they also typically
| seek the services of lawyers when buying land for the
| same reasons.
| vundercind wrote:
| > will typically seek the services of a lawyer when
| buying land
|
| I've seen a state where this is _required by law_ , and
| I've seen a state where it wasn't. Very few people
| retained a lawyer when buying or selling land, in the
| latter.
|
| I've bought property in both, and my state-required
| redistributional tax paid to a lawyer added zero to my
| confidence level. The extra middleman actually made me a
| tad more wary.
|
| (I take your broader point, but reject the idea that
| lawyers are an especially useful element of a normal real
| estate transaction, for most people, at least in the US--
| I mean, on some level a lawyer drafted some form-
| documents and maybe some institution involved had a
| lawyer quickly glance at something at some point even in
| the rarely-using-lawyers state, but as a buyer or seller,
| directly interacting with a lawyer? IDK, maybe if you're
| involved in a FSBO transaction with no agents involved
| and also no financing)
| pessimizer wrote:
| > if they learn to solve real problems in the real world
| and it helps them
|
| We have less evidence of this than of improvements in
| literacy rates. At least in the US, no part of the
| curriculum has anything to do with general life skills
| other than driver's ed and math, and innumeracy is far more
| common than illiteracy.
| kleene_op wrote:
| Why wouldn't it be?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I think the point this report (from UNESCO) is trying to make
| is that this "proper education alone" is not available for
| everyone to begin with. That said, clicking further it has a
| chart that shows more than 80% of countries have "some form of
| basic education" at least, which is double that of what it was
| 100 years ago.
|
| But in countries where it is, it's highlighting that there's a
| way to go yet. It doesn't give all the data (after all, it's a
| website selling data) but it's pretty telling that a lot of
| countries that we think of as having good education (like most
| of Europe) are not in the top five.
| lucianbr wrote:
| I'm sure your point is great and all, but with Europe having
| about 50 countries, most of them can not be in the top five
| for a given subject no matter what.
| throw646577 wrote:
| Putting aside that the top five can only be five, the second-
| best-performing country is in Europe: Ireland.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I don't know where the idea "everyone" will be able to achieve
| a certain minimum reading comprehension came from and it's
| trivial to show that wouldn't be true.
|
| As I understand it, the topic is more about the differences
| between countries in the chart rather than somehow achieving
| 100%. E.g. how Ireland sits around 87% while Senegal sits at
| 2%. If Senegal were able to afford the same overall quality of
| education for their students as Ireland don't you think the
| would have significantly higher numbers?
| throw646577 wrote:
| At risk of self-fulfilling a joke, I don't know exactly what
| you mean here.
|
| The level of education UNESCO is talking about is not
| enormously challenging: "Minimum reading proficiency for the
| end of lower-secondary education means students can connect
| main ideas across different text types, understand the author's
| intentions, and draw conclusions based on the text."
|
| So yes, I think that is a reasonable objective for 12-15 year
| olds that should be available to everyone by virtue of proper
| education alone.
|
| Indeed it is very difficult to give a 12-15 year old a proper
| education if they cannot do this. It's foundational. So one
| would almost expect any 12-15 year old who can be taught
| _anything abstract_ at an appropriate level to be able to do
| this.
|
| The alarming thing about the data shown here is that it
| includes children who are not even in education, which would
| skew it down a lot in, say, "third world" countries, but should
| not be skewing it so much in western countries, and yet...
| slightly more than one in five of UK and US 12-15 year olds
| lack this skill according to that assessment.
|
| Some of this might be fundamental reading challenges (visual
| impairment, dyslexia, attention and memory), but still, it is
| not a particularly good sign for the global figure if these
| rather ordinary western countries are scoring so low.
| (Singapore and Japan manage more like 85%)
|
| The full explorable graph appears to be here for 2023 data -- I
| can't find it for 2024.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-children-reachin...
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| These numbers include all children of middle school age, not
| just those who attend school.
| francisofascii wrote:
| I wonder if the majority of people would have improved
| comprehension by listening or watching a video. For much of
| human history, knowledge was transferred orally, so maybe
| humans are naturally better at that. With the ubiquitous of
| video, do people really need to be expert readers and writers?
| etempleton wrote:
| Everyone? No. But depending on how reading comprehension is
| defined / tested I would suspect at least 90% of individuals
| are capable of full reading comprehension.
| randcraw wrote:
| Is this new? Or has this been true for decades? What is the
| trend, both across countries and within each?
| dv_dt wrote:
| Could it also be that teenagers are taking standardized tests
| less seriously if the stakes aren't apparent
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't think this is based on standardized tests because
| they're not standardized internationally; this would be
| presented more as a questionnaire or poll than a test, made
| to assess roughly the same in every country it was given.
| lolinder wrote:
| This isn't an answer to their question about whether there's
| been any change for the worse, it's speculation about the
| reason for the change, assuming any such change does exist.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| There have always been some. I remember kids just randomly
| filling in bubbles on the standardized tests 40 years ago
| when I was in school. There was no consequence to them and
| they just didn't care.
| doubled112 wrote:
| "When in doubt, pick C" carried me all the way through
| college.
|
| Even when there were consequences, sometimes I still didn't
| care. I've since grown out of it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I think you'll have to do that research for yourself, but I did
| a cursory googling for you and it seems fairly stable in the US
| since the 70's [0].
|
| [0] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=38
| dagurp wrote:
| In my country the trend has been alarming, especially among
| boys. The politicians just shrug and say that the PISA tests
| are flawed.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| What are their arguments for why it's supposedly flawed?
| obscurette wrote:
| In Estonia there are many influential people arguing that
| although Estonian kids do really well in PISA tests
| (although the trend is declining there as well), they are
| also very unhappy kids. So PISA must be flawed. I haven't
| seen any data really supporting it except usual "mental
| problems are increasing since about 2010" data.
| dagurp wrote:
| One of them said that it wasn't good enough because they're
| optional. He didn't explain the logic behind that any
| further. Some say it's because the kids speak english all
| day.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Here's one from 2019:
| https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-ho...
|
| but no, it isn't new. There's a war between phonetic reading
| and 'whole word' reading. Whole Word gets you around the 'but
| phonetics are confusing and there are too many exceptions'
| problem except that it produces people who cannot comprehend a
| document.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Is this actually demonstrated though? Seems like whole word
| reading didn't result in improved outcomes.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| I hadn't heard of "whole word" reading or at least not to the
| point of reading about it, but from that article and the wiki
| page, my opinion is that it should be combined with phonics,
| they complement each other. There is no need to compete. Most
| of the whole word stragity is describing how I coped and
| masked my hidden dyslexia throughout school (only learned
| about it as an adult). The whole word stragity of using
| context clues got me through standardize testing with perfect
| reading scores.
|
| Multiple times throughout school no one knew what to do with
| me in reading/English because I scored so highly, read so
| slowly, and hallucinated words if forced to read out loud
| (usually a word that meant the same thing but is written
| absolute nowhere, its the bane of my existence). I can not
| for the life of me sound out words to figure out the
| spelling, life would make a lot more sense if we all simply
| moved to using the phonetic transcription[0] way of spelling.
|
| I mean really, "realise" wrong in the US, correct in UK--but
| it sounds like guise, so why should "guize" be wrong? Yeah it
| is confusing, especially for spelling. The 'whole word' way
| to memorize as many words as possible--I mean you have to do
| that anyway to know when to use things like "ize" or "ise" in
| American English. I'm guessing there are more examples and
| occurs in other languages as well(?). This one in particular
| caused unnecessary frustration for me in school.
|
| Sounding out words(trying to) helps a little but it's more of
| a backup tool for me. My written vocabulary is vastly
| superior to my verbal simply because I can not pronounce all
| of the words I know. From my understanding, part of dyslexia
| can include the difficulty separating individual sounds.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_transcription
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Strategy, but I know what you mean from context
| nashashmi wrote:
| Had a hard time learning comprehension myself. Acquired it when I
| was 16. Quite painfully.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| My kid is 14 going to secondary school in Ireland right now.
|
| And I'm helping them with their English homework and I notice how
| much of it is reading stuff and trying to get them to question
| what they are reading etc.
|
| Far more than when I was a kid their age, in my English class.
| cesaref wrote:
| 'These numbers include all children of middle school age, not
| just those who attend school.'
|
| I think the low scores are telling you more about the pressure on
| children in poorer countries to work to support their families,
| rather than the quality of teaching when they are able to attend
| school.
| eddsolves wrote:
| True, but numbers are surprisingly bad in the US, Sweden, and
| in England (lived all three so still follow the local news and
| seen stories about this in the last two weeks).
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> but numbers are surprisingly bad in the US, Sweden, and in
| England_
|
| Kids in rich countries have their brain fried from watching
| Cocomelon, Youtube Kids and Tiktok. They've been spawn-camped
| by ad-tech. Gotta get them when they're young.
| runako wrote:
| https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=38
|
| The US scores are relatively consistent going back over a
| half-century. TikTok and Cocomelon are not the culprits.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The numbers have been going up as those things have been
| introduced, not down:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42318019
|
| HN blames social media for everything, but this clearly
| isn't it.
| eschulz wrote:
| I think many kids growing up today in developing countries
| also have their brains fried by the same ad-tech.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Yeah, it's concerning, but not particularly relevant to those
| of us in places where children are required to go to school. I
| want to know what percentage of children, who can read and
| attend school, can't comprehend what they are reading.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Comprehension is a higher bar than "literacy". Global adult
| literacy rates have been drastically improving since the 1950s
| (https://ourworldindata.org/literacy). Today, global adult
| literacy rate is estimated at ~87%.
|
| I -think- this is the appropiate interactive plot:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-children-reachin...
|
| The controls are annoying, but world level data only goes back to
| 2000:
|
| * 2000: 38%
|
| * 2005: 41%
|
| * 2010: 45%
|
| * 2015: 47%
|
| * 2019: 48.5% (this is the closest point)
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Comprehension is a higher bar than "literacy".
|
| And one would argue that comprehension is more essential than
| ever, since every last thing you do in the modern world and
| nearly every product you interact with comes with a pages-long
| terms and conditions document in which you get the funny stuff
| like the inability to use iTunes to make nuclear weapons, and
| far more importantly, how a number of large platform services
| reserve the right to sell your soul to as many devils as they
| can.
|
| Like, on balance, I'm doing okay in life. I could have more
| savings put away but ultimately I have a good job in tech, I
| own a home, and basically have all my essentials handled with a
| side of a few toys to tinker on. I cannot _fathom_ how I could
| get my life functioning without strong reading skills. It 's...
| it's literally everything, it's communication in my office
| since I'm remote, it's filing taxes correctly, it's interacting
| with my local government, hell writing is a side hobby of mine
| and has been all my life. I can't fucking imagine what kind of
| utter hell it must be to even only be literate, let alone
| illiterate.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| This makes me think of how neuralink and Elon keep saying how
| their tech will revolutionize communication where people
| without it will seem so slow and utterly disadvantaged.
|
| Literacy and comprehension allows vast amounts of data to be
| transferred between humans. Anything that increases that even
| more will be a game changer and really bad for those who
| won't have it.
| callalex wrote:
| He also said cars would drive themselves in 2017, so you
| probably shouldn't listen to anything he has to say.
| https://fortune.com/2015/12/21/elon-musk-interview/
| nabla9 wrote:
| The concept of literacy itself means more than "able to read."
| (aka alphabetical literacy meaning word and letter
| recognition). Literacy is the ability to use printed and
| written information to function in society, to achieve one's
| goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential.
|
| International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) has five
| levels. Only 50% of U.S. adults age 16 to 65 are level 3 or
| above.
|
| Level 3:
|
| >Texts at this level are often dense or lengthy and include
| continuous, noncontinuous, mixed, or multiple pages of text.
| Understanding text and rhetorical structures becomes more
| central to successfully completing tasks, especially navigating
| complex digital texts. Tasks require the respondent to
| identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of
| information and often require varying levels of inference. Many
| tasks require the respondent to construct meaning across larger
| chunks of text or perform multi-step operations in order to
| identify and formulate responses. Often, tasks also demand that
| the respondent disregard irrelevant or inappropriate content to
| answer accurately. Competing information is often present, but
| it is not more prominent than the correct information.
| vundercind wrote:
| I've come to think that a good chunk of the resistance to
| written-word-heavy remote work, and to the phenomenon of
| "let's just hop on a quick call" where the alternative was
| pretty likely to be a _much quicker_ IM exchange, is due to
| this exact thing--not just that a lot of people _can 't_ read
| at that level-3 proficiency, but that another cohort can, but
| finds that the absolute limit of their ability and quite
| taxing, leaving well more than half of the population
| _uncomfortable_ in a professional reading- and writing-heavy
| environment, if not wholly incapable of working in it at all.
| yesco wrote:
| To add another angle: in the past I've experienced issues
| where I'd always butt heads with a co-worker if we used a
| messenger, but would be fine when we talked over a call.
| I'm sure a higher reading comprehension from a certain
| someone could maybe have helped with that, but I suspect
| much of it just comes down to the fact that a lot of
| nuance/tone is lost when thoughts are put into writing,
| which makes it easier to offend people.
|
| At work, arguing with people is the last thing I want to
| deal with, so calls are sometimes the simplest way to cut
| through the bullshit.
| vundercind wrote:
| I think detecting or even being aware of register in
| writing is an also lot harder for some folks than the
| same thing is in speech, which can lead to problems
| similar and related to misreading tone. I'd classify
| that, and difficulty dealing with tone _per se_ in
| writing, as at least in part also a reading comprehension
| problem, but ultimately it doesn 't much matter the cause
| when your immediate task is to communicate with the
| person: your options are to write better for your
| audience of _that person_ , or, yeah, switch medium to
| speech.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > I think detecting or even being aware of register in
| writing is an also lot harder for some folks than the
| same thing is in speech
|
| I think this is a large reason why forums and comment
| sections can get so out-of-hand. Add to that the growing
| online habit of using as few characters/words as possible
| to communicate; then there is emoji only communication--
| thinking if that's its own comprehension category,
| teenager/young adults would score much better (better
| than I would at least).
| bravetraveler wrote:
| Literacy is certainly part of it... but several have
| suckered me into calls _[that took an order of magnitude
| longer]_ simply by stating they didn 't like to type. In
| the plainest terms: they'd rather waste our collective time
| to spare their individual effort.
|
| I don't mean in terms of bandwidth. _" Real words"_ can
| indeed clear things up. I truly mean they didn't want to
| ask a question, read a response, and carry on.
|
| My pet theories/reasons include poor vision and passive-
| aggression. An extremely soft power play, forcing
| synchronous communication when it's truly unnecessary.
|
| Realistically I know they just want to bond... but I'm here
| to be paid. We'll manage with some emotional distance, I
| promise. Trying to force things often has the opposite
| effect. I'm more friendly to those who don't appear to have
| ulterior motives
| justinclift wrote:
| Wonder if many of the people who'd "fail" at this level would
| instead be able to process and use Youtube (and similar)
| videos instead?
|
| If that's the case, then maybe the difference is less
| important these days than it once was?
| westurner wrote:
| SDG reports have literacy stats,
|
| Goal 4: "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and
| promote lifelong learning opportunities for all"
| https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4#targets_and_indicators
|
| Target 4.6: _By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial
| proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and
| numeracy_
|
| Indicator 4.6.1: _Proportion of population in a given age group
| achieving at least a fixed level of proficiency in functional
| (a) literacy and (b) numeracy skills, by sex_
|
| SDG4:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goal_4
|
| SDG4 > Target 4.6: Universal literacy and numeracy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goal_4...
|
| The UN Stats 2024 Statistical Annex says there's no data for
| 4.6.1 since 2020?
| https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/report/2024/E_2024_54_Stat...
|
| SDG e-Handbook re: Target 4.6.1:
| https://unstats.un.org/wiki/plugins/servlet/mobile?contentId...
|
| World Bank data series: SE.ADT.LITR.ZS,
| https://databank.worldbank.org/metadataglossary/millennium-d...
|
| FRED Series > Literacy Rate, Adult Total for the World
| (SEADTLITRZSWLD
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SEADTLITRZSWLD
|
| There is no Literacy Rate data for the United States in World
| Bank or in FRED according to a quick search.
|
| Literacy in the United States:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
|
| The National Literacy Institute > Literacy Statistics 2024 -
| 2025 :
| https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-s...
|
| > _On average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in
| 2024._
|
| > _21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024._
|
| > _54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20%
| are below 5th-grade level)._
|
| > _Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per
| year._
|
| But what about comprehension?
|
| Reading comprehension:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I this why TikTok is so popular?
| realce wrote:
| I this so to
| lars512 wrote:
| Hi HN! You may be interested in some related work:
|
| "Millions of children learn only very little. How can the world
| provide a better education to the next generation?"
| https://ourworldindata.org/better-learning
|
| Our topic page on Global Education:
| https://ourworldindata.org/global-education
|
| Our wider catalog of education data:
| https://ourworldindata.org/data?topics=Global+Education
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Do you have opinions on Online school movements like Khan
| Academy? I know there are schools that provide a cookie cutter
| curriculum but maybe that is better than nothing that many
| economically disadvantaged students for all into?
|
| Having gone through public school in Texas and putting my own
| children through private school, I am warming up to things like
| https://highschool.utexas.edu/
| kaon_ wrote:
| Senegal only 5%? I thought it was a well educated country. Maybe
| something wrong with the data?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| With respect. Go to the map of school attendance percentages by
| nation.
|
| Once there, compare Senegal's school attendance percentage to
| the attendance percentages in the rest of West Africa.
|
| And the bad news is that percentages in Senegal are likely
| juiced and then reported given the way the government works in
| Senegal. Whereas percentages in places like Ghana are likely
| reported as lower than they actually are due to the way the
| government works in Ghana.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Those "read a novel" and write about it every chapter really
| helps. I wonder if that type of exercise would work now kids know
| about AI, my guess is that parents shouldn't tell their kids
| about LLMs too early as they can depend on it and mess them up
| cies wrote:
| So is it getting better, or getting worse?
|
| The title is quite alarming, but looking at the comments here it
| seems the number is growing... So it's more like a moment for
| celebration :)
|
| "This year half of teenagers globally _can_ read with
| comprehension! "
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Reading aloud helps with comprehension. I sometimes read aloud
| myself, I think its good to speak a few thousand extra words
| everyday...words you might not usually say if you're reading a
| classic novel. Plus I usually take a long hot bath after workouts
| to help with recovery. So a good time to read while soaking in
| bubbles. Can recommend.
| thebiss wrote:
| Do teachers and parents now actively encourage students to read
| aloud? I'd love to see a study showing this helps.
|
| When I did this in middle school I was repeated told to stop,
| and that doing so or talking myself through math problems were
| "signs of mental illness," and I needed to keep it in my head.
|
| I hated that it made it easier.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| I witnessed the most extraordinary use of this in the one year
| my wife's son lived with us during his pre-med coursework in
| undergrad.
|
| He would read aloud to himself (in a quiet voice). He explained
| that it was his way of keeping himself concentrated, because
| (in his description) he was reading, speaking, and listening
| all at the same time, and that that combo overloaded his
| attention and kept him focused.
|
| He went from graduating towards the top here in our middling
| uni, to being accepted into Johns Hopkins (but choosing to
| remain local), and then getting his first-choice residency. He
| is now an accomplished specialist doctor.
|
| Three notes:
|
| 1) He never drank alcohol in his life. It was a distinct
| advantage, especially in undergrad.
|
| 2) He said that he would not let himself be a patient to over
| 85% or 90% of the doctors that graduated with him from med
| school.
|
| 3) He had a grand total of FOUR HOURS of nutrition education in
| med school. I think that's insane, but the system is really
| about pills and procedures.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Congratulations to your son, that's quite an accomplishment.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| It's my wife's son, and it is truly extraordinary.
|
| I played but a miniscule role.
| layer8 wrote:
| For some reason, when I read aloud, I have a hard time
| concentrating on the content. It's like reading aloud and
| comprehension are two different tasks that I need to multi-
| task.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Reading ability (and reading comprehension) is very correlated
| with IQ.
|
| An IQ of 100 is not quite enough. Most people with that IQ can
| read (but not everybody, even discounting the dyslexics) and most
| people with that IQ can read relatively simple things.
|
| And the global average is a lot lower than 100...
| lcouturi wrote:
| Isn't the global average supposed to be exactly 100 by
| definition, or did I misunderstand how IQ works?
| peterfirefly wrote:
| You did (not your fault). Usually a Western country is used,
| often the UK. That doesn't really matter, though, as long as
| a sufficiently similar scale is used when comparing. Tests
| can be (and are) recalibrated sometimes.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Isn't 100 set to be the average? How can the average be less
| than the average?
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