Bchabony's List: Debate evidence

• 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.
• The current literacy rate isn't any better than it was 10 years ago. According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (completed most recently in 2003, and before that, in 1992), 14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a "below basic" literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a "basic" reading level.

  • even at the height of the digital age (past 10 years to present) literacy rates have not increased.

• TEXTING, since its advent in 1992, has become well rooted in our daily lives

  • 1992-beginning of text messages
• Texters usually want to send messages quickly, and shortening words or purposely misspelling for ease does this

  • texting encourages an ignorance of literacy/spelling/grammar
• Woronoff (2007), who assumed that “exposure to texisms will inevitably affect children’s memory of the correct form” (Wood et al 2014:23). He argued that children are more prone to commit errors due to their minds still being in the formation stage, a stage which adults have already past. However, theories conflict with one another. Wood (2014) argues that studies such as Brown (1988) and Dixon & Kaminska (1997) reveal that when adults are exposed to an incorrect spelling of a word it can result in a decline of their ability to spell the correct form, thus suggesting textisms have the ability to affect all

  • affects adolescents and adults alike. alliteration!

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• Texting
• can influence kids to spell incorrectly or get confused about the correct usage
• Many common daily words have been shortened by SMS. It is likely that it might affect much of their ability to spell, since their minds are in the formation stage.

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• The results, published in Human Communication Research, show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills
• By explaining and describing objects or new words and images, or by prompting conversation through questions, maternal responsiveness can help to engage a child with the activity. The parent can also provide positive feedback and encouragement to a child, or repeat what the child has said to help familiarize them with certain words or sights
• The results demonstrated that who mothers co-read books communicated significantly more with their children than mothers watching TV
• The team found that when reading a book with their children parents used a more active communication style, bringing the child into contact with words they may not hear in every day speech, thereby improving their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. In contrast watching TV resulted in significantly fewer descriptions and positive responses than mothers playing with toys

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• To navigate the professional world, career-seeking adults need proficient communicative, reading and writing skills.
• watching excessive amounts of TV seriously undermines that goal.
  This leads to fresh high school and college graduates who are drastically unprepared to compete for a career, lacking critical skills such as:
  resume writing
  creating and giving presentations
  writing reports, emails, etc. with professional language and correct grammar
  ability to quickly take in and understand large amounts of written information
  communication/collaboration with peers and coworkers
• Children who watch more TV are less likely to read
• Children who don't read before age 8 are much less likely to start reading later in life

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