[joegibbs]

There was a study "They don’t read very well: A study of the reading comprehension skills of English majors at two midwestern universities" last year where they had university students try to read the opening of Bleak House by Dickens, they couldn't do it at all.

Text: "it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill."

Respondent: "It’s probably some kind of an animal or something or another that it is talking about encountering in the streets. And “wandering like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.” So, yup, I think we’ve encountered some kind of an animal these, these characters have, have met in the street."

[BLKNSLVR]

I consider myself quite literate, and (I think) can both read and construct complex sentences that remain grammatically- and content-descriptively-correct.

Having said that, when I read Thomas Pynchon, and I've only progressed through four of his more beginner-friendly books, in a number of places I feel that reading his work is something that is passively happening to me, as opposed to my actively following along with the action / description.

There's something I enjoy about Pynchon's writing, but I don't think I'm picking up everything that he's putting down.

Similarly with the older language used by Dickens. But damn it sounds good.

[rpdillon]

I only tried reading Gravity's Rainbow, but boy, was that a totally different literary experience than I've ever had. I could only make progress while listening to trance.

[jagged-chisel]

Response looks cherry picked. I’d be curious to know the methodology here. I’ve seen intelligent students twisting in an attempt to satisfy the instructor that they (have been trained to) assume is trying to trick them with puzzles; the kind where “gotcha!” is the typical teaching method; where common sense is frowned upon.

[rahimnathwani]

IIRC the paper is behind a paywall. But this article has some good snippets from it:

https://open.substack.com/pub/nataliewexler/p/struggles-with...

[jagged-chisel]

In this specific case, I am left with questions: Why do these students need to read 19th century novels? And why do they need to understand the details of day-to-day life of over a century ago?

These are mostly rhetorical because my point is that you will not get the same answers from instructors, teachers, professors, parents …

If you want people, especially children, to read, it needs to be interesting to them. If you want them to learn by reading, they need to have had good experiences reading.

“Here, read some Dickens and we’ll discuss it next week …” without any amount of preparation by the teacher to a) help students understand the times within which it was written, and b) prepare them for the meandering prose is indeed a recipe for disaster.

Examples:

“as here he is” - so he's already doing what he ought? Or is there an alternate reading of this phrase meaning "he's physically here, but the situation is not as it ought to be"?

“… addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers…” - by the time we get here, is he saying the advocate is present, or that the advocate ought to be present but is not?

The sentence ran on, against the education we’ve been so wearily handed over the years. If we are not permitted to craft such things, how can we be expected to ever understand them?

The most productive way to invite a student to begin parsing this, in spite of their education, is to have someone - one who understands the passage, and can render the correct inflections and emphasis - read this to the class.

Barring that, if students are expected to parse, understand, and discuss prose and topics so many generations removed from their own lives, Education® needs to get off its butt and educate.

[rahimnathwani]

You're missing the point. They were given excerpts to read and, even with access to their phones to look up unfamiliar words, they were not able to understand what was written.

No one forced them to read full novels or even full pages.

No one expected them to know what 'Lord Chancellor' was. They could look it up.

"The most productive way to invite a student to begin parsing this, in spite of their education, is to have someone - one who understands the passage, and can render the correct inflections and emphasis - read this to the class."

The purpose of the study was to test reading comprehension. If you replace the 'reading' part with listening, you're not testing reading comprehension.