“The internet” says grade 6 = 11-12yo, which for my reference is Year 7 in NZ, or the first year of intermediate (Y7 and Y8; between primary and secondary school) which is a fairly low bar.
So I checked the OECD and we are basically average; just above the US in the 2023 data. So better but not much better.
Mapping this to age to help.
“The internet” says grade 6 = 11-12yo, which for my reference is Year 7 in NZ, or the first year of intermediate (Y7 and Y8; between primary and secondary school) which is a fairly low bar.
So I checked the OECD and we are basically average; just above the US in the 2023 data. So better but not much better.
To be fair, newspapers back in the day aimed to write for a 6-8th grade reading level here in the US.
At this point though, I’ve been told that this is basically functional illiteracy here.
the vast majority of people don’t need advanced reading skills.
and those that do, typically only need them temporarily during their college years.
Where i live tons of people have advanced degrees, but outside of work/college, they see reading as boring and stupid and have no interest in it.