I read today at OpEdNews about a 2003 study by a Yale University researcher.
1. More than 50 percent of first-year college students couldn't write a paper free of grammatical errors. When I was a freshman in college many many moons ago, the freshman had to take a spelling test with 70% correct required for passing. Only 4 of us, out of the 120 or so freshman passed. Sounds to me like things haven't changed much in 30 years.
2. 80% of graduating high school seniors say they will never read another book. I said that, too, when I got out of high school. Three months later, my nose was in a textbook at college.
3. About two-thirds of US students lack the skills/reading ability to comprehend a novel, textbook or other 'complicated writing.' My wife just finished an online class in critical thinking to teach students how to read.
Uh...I dunno. If Americans are so stupid, then why do so many innovations come from this country? Why do so many students from other countries want to come here?
It seems to me that things have not changed all that much between students heading off to college now and those who went 30 years ago. Maybe there are more students going now, thus we see more students are challenged.
There are more studies now to tell us how much harder it is for our new freshman.
I guess I believe in the American student. Maybe that is why I am a teacher.
What do you think?
It's not just the spelling. Most freshmen enter college as "basic writers."
I was a pretty good if erratic writer when I entered college way back when, but my husband could barely write a coherent sentence. He had to take "dummy" English.
He is now a PhD scientist who writes elaborate scientific papers and other kinds of writing. For years I helped him out with basic sentence structure, but these days he flies on his own.
Neither of us got composition writing in our high school English classes. We got "grammar" instead. We could spell fine, but our other skills were neglected. This was in the 1950's. I believe our teachers were unable to write themselves, nor could they evaluate writing.
The common techniques of freewriting, journal keeping, etc. would have been considered too far out then.
Posted by: Hattie | September 21, 2006 12:06 PM | Permalink to Comment