SATReading scores drop to lowest levels in 40 years

[kennyc]

SAT reading scores for this year's graduating high-school seniors reached the lowest point in nearly four decades, the College Board reported Wednesday.

Nationally, the reading score for the class of 2011 was 497, down three points from the previous year and 33 points from 1972, the earliest year for which comparisons are possible. The average math score was 514, down one point from last year but up five from 1972. The maximum score is 800 for each subject, including a writing section, and 2,400 overall.

See here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...DTK_story.html

[mldavis2]

Mere speculation, but as a former teacher at the high school level in the U.S., I see some disturbing trends:

First is the increase in digital toys, even at pre-school levels. In former generations, kids had to use toys creatively or even make their own to construct their own scenarios. My generation had Lincoln Logs, Legos, sticks and rocks. Today, parents buy electronic gadgets requiring batteries and knowledge of where to push the button.

Entertainment is now predominately television or video games. Sit and watch or sit and exercise hand-eye coordination skills. The entertainment is given, not created and imagined. "Entertain me." A corollary is that watching has morphed from sit-coms (Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie & Harriet) to MTV-type video flash images. While one may argue that the information stream is greater, I'll argue that the depth of comprehension is close to nil, while attention spans have eroded tremendously. Few students can listen to a classroom presentation without video entertainment of some form. And, as an aside, note the growth of the mega-churches that have capitalized on entertainment to attract the current generation of short spanners.

Reading, chess and the like are too "old fashioned" to be of interest to most students. Lower socio-economic families don't often encourage children to read. Single parents are not around to monitor the use of discretionary time and cannot often find time to help with library trips. Upper socio-economic families buy the expensive computerized toys, smart phones, iPads and the like for their children to keep up with the others on their perceived level while they by-pass conventional brain-intensive challenges.

So combine the lack of reading (vocabulary), lack of attention span and lack of supervision, and we see SAT scores eroding, and, at least in the U.S., declining verbal and math test scores, especially compared to the rest of the civilized world. But then, that's my view, and I left teaching at the high school level over 20 years ago, so what do I know?

It's easy enough to complain about things. Declining SAT scores are not surprising. The creative question is, does it matter, and what do we do about it?

[stickybuns]

First day of class, one of my college composition students asked if the tests would be multiple choice. There are times when the part of my brain that controls diplomacy will short circuit and this was one of those times: "Multiple choice? What? Only a teacher who is lazy and incompetent would have a multiple choice test in a WRITING class! Oh, but, uh, hmm, uh. I'm sure your high school English teacher was a lovely person. Ahem. So! Moving on!"

My 3 1/2 year old came home from preschool yesterday with homework worksheets. Homework for a 3 1/2 year old when evidence-based research has failed to show a correlative (let alone a causative) relationship between homework and improved cognitive abilities in children under the age of 10. Worksheets went in the garbage, and we spent the evening feeding peanuts to the kiddo's invisible pet elephant instead.

[abookreader]

Being the proud owner of 18 and 21 year old male beings - I'm not surprised. My 18 year old rocked the Reading portion of his ACT test though - by far his highest score.

They are without a doubt the YouTube generation. Their writing is primarily through text messaging. I say on one of my oldest's syllabi the other day the Professor was begging them to communicate with him through real emails and not text messages.

Their attention span at most is the length of one FIFA 2011 soccer game (um honey, you know that's not a real trophy - right?)

Yet still, I love them to death. Mostly.

[anamardoll]

I haven't taken the SATs in years, BUT. I would wonder what effort is being made to keep the tests (and the material on them) relevant to students. If the test scores are slipping not because the students have crappy reading abilities but because the test material is written in a version of English that is becoming increasingly out-of-date, then the tests need to be revised to reflect this.

Assuming that we want the tests to reflect comprehension overall (yay) and not their grasp of obscure words (boo).

[SCION]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

...
Reading, chess and the like are too "old fashioned" to be of interest to most students. Lower socio-economic families don't often encourage children to read. Single parents are not around to monitor the use of discretionary time and cannot often find time to help with library trips. Upper socio-economic families buy the expensive computerized toys, smart phones, iPads and the like for their children to keep up with the others on their perceived level while they by-pass conventional brain-intensive challenges.
...

Nicely stated. I agree.

[user_none]

The original article and the press release did not mention if the 2011 scores were adjusted to what they were in 1972. In 1995 the SAT was "re-centered" and gives about a 70 point advantage (verbal section) to test takers after 1995. Basically the scores had dropped so low that the College Board moved 500 to reflect the average of that year.

[speakingtohe]

It's easy enough to complain about things. Declining SAT scores are not surprising. The creative question is, does it matter, and what do we do about it?
__________________

My feeling is it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life, and it is up to the individuals involved to do something about it if they feel it does (students, parents, teachers).

There may actually be a higher percentage of people who can read reasonably well than ever before. But those who can read and absorb and do something useful with this knowledge is probably about the same.

Drive and ambition, not to mention hard work, have always been a bigger determining factor in the success of an individual than an education and I don't see that changing.

Helen

[Andrew H.]

There was a story in last year's NY Times about how "record numbers" of students were taking the SAT, which is consistent with what I've heard almost every year. If the pool of students taking the SAT has expanded significantly since 1971 by adding in less prepared students, that could explain much of the drop right there.

[luqmaninbmore]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

Mere speculation, but as a former teacher at the high school level in the U.S., I see some disturbing trends:

First is the increase in digital toys, even at pre-school levels. In former generations, kids had to use toys creatively or even make their own to construct their own scenarios. My generation had Lincoln Logs, Legos, sticks and rocks. Today, parents buy electronic gadgets requiring batteries and knowledge of where to push the button.

True that. It used to be the case that the toy was just a prop for the imagination. Now the imagination is just an accessory to the toy.

Originally Posted by mldavis2

Lower socio-economic families don't often encourage children to read.

With respect, do you have empirical data to back this claim up? As a teacher, I work with many children from 'lower' socio-economic categories (or let's be frank and call out the elephant in the room and call them 'classes'). I don't see a trend in who gets encouragement to read and who doesn't. Plenty of lower class kids are encouraged to read (and some actually do) and plenty of upper class kids don't get that encouragement. The "I'm not gonna read when I leave college" attitude is quite prevalent, but it carries with it the implication that its bearer is going to college.

[mldavis2]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

... I would wonder what effort is being made to keep the tests (and the material on them) relevant to students. If the test scores are slipping not because the students have crappy reading abilities but because the test material is written in a version of English that is becoming increasingly out-of-date, then the tests need to be revised to reflect this.

Assuming that we want the tests to reflect comprehension overall (yay) and not their grasp of obscure words (boo).

The use of ethnic-based questions and wording has been blamed for the poor results by ESL (English as a Second Language) students for some time now, and often these are the same students who outperform their peers in academic classes - a clear triumph of comprehension over vocabulary. It is also a major concern when testing minorities among whom common street language holds sway against "the king's English" as taught in grammar classes. In short, there are too many variables to make a case, statistically or otherwise, over a period of a year of two, especially with an increase in minorities and people returning to school from the workforce in times of a poor economy. So perhaps the point slip in one year is not significant. It's the trend that should matter.

Which brings me back to the case for reading. It pains me daily to hear adults and their offspring using erroneous conjugation of the common English verbs 'to do,' 'to see,' 'to be.' (I done my homework and we was headed to the movie where we seen the new Batman flick.) Perhaps this Ozark, colloquial slang numbs the senses when heard constantly, though I have yet to succumb, having surrounded myself with reading material written in 'proper' grammatical style for the most part . Does it indicate intelligence? Probably not, but it can affect test scores in grading an SAT essay. Is proper grammar 'out of date?' I don't think so. Many people still prefer the King James Version of the bible and many of us still read Edgar Allen Poe's works, or Corelli's Mandolin with a little help from our dictionaries.

One function of education is to teach students to adapt to situational variations and upgrade their vocabularies. While we may not use terminology referring to horse and buggy accoutrements on a daily basis, we still, on occasion of reading a Sherlock Holmes adventure or Dumas novel, upgrade our own knowledge of 'obsolete' terminology in order to add to our understanding. I doubt that the SAT tests intentionally dip into obscurity for their testing material.

So, are we seeing a disturbing trend? I hope not, but the abandonment of intellectual pursuits such as reading in favor of zombie zapping on the computer can't help but result in reduced verbal skills among our youth and the perhaps inevitable decline in test scores as written by educators locked into accepted standards of yesterday and today. It is impossible to evaluate student potential fairly with the relative simplicity of an SAT test, but it's the best we have, it's a fairly stable benchmark, and it's better than guessing.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by mldavis2

Many people still prefer the King James Version of the bible

You lost me there. I can't stand the KJV, and I'd kick anyone in the ankles who tried to make me read it.

I think a lot of this thread is panic-bait. Final Fantasy Tactics taught me more about math than most of my middle school textbooks, and I'm pretty sure that reading Dragonlance and the other fluff I had as a kid didn't make me superior academically to my peers, so I'm sad to see YET ANOTHER "Books Good, Shiny Objects Bad" thread.

[Daithi]

I don't think it has anything to do with with computers, and iPods, and cellphones, etc. When I was kid (I'm 45) my elders used to complain about us kids not playing outside and watching too much TV, etc.

I'm not even 100% sure that kids do in fact have less reading ability than previous generations. After all, kids do read more than previous generations. This generation uses Wikipedia, and reads internet news articles, and the latest gossip on TV personalities, etc. This makes me wonder about the validity of the testing. Maybe this generation of kids has a harder time knowing when to use 'affect' vs. 'effect', and it is testing on these kinds of details that are truly being reported and not reading ability.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Daithi

After all, kids do read more than previous generations.

Where are the Rowlingites when you need them? Pretty sure that Harry Potter didn't become the phenomena that it did because Kids These Days Don't Read.

Originally Posted by Daithi

Maybe this generation of kids has a harder time knowing when to use 'affect' vs. 'effect', and it is testing on these kinds of details that are truly being reported and not reading ability.

I agree. And for the record, I've mistakenly used "affect" for "effect" once or twice. Ten Hail Marys, I know.

[Lizzie in Ma]

I'm not surprised I guess. I don't see my children's friends as being very literate to a large extent. On the other hand, I think children value what their parents model as valuable.
Our home is filled with books and my husband and I have always been voracious readers. Our children grew up being read to, having audiobooks on at bedtime and reading as soon as they were able.
So, our kids read. A lot. For fun.
My kids take the Stanford 10 tests every year and they both score through the roof in total reading scores. Leaps and bounds past the national average. It is effortless for them. Not bragging, I attribute it as much to dumbed down tests as their ability. Makes it even scarier that the high school SAT scores are so low.
It makes me sad that, on the whole, reading is no longer valued as a pastime but more as something to be endured only in school.