I heard someone say that the average reading age of the UK adult was 9 years old (or something along those lines)
doesn’t that change what ‘9 years old’ means in terms of reading age?
does it mean they all stopped learning how to read at age 9??
like who’s the 9 year old child that sets the reading age?
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A lot of has to do with vocabulary. How many words can they recognize and/or use? There’s also an element of comprehension. If they read an advanced text, how much of it do they understand.
Linguists have studied books, newspapers, TV, regular conversations, etc to decide which words are the most common, and which words are considered advanced.
They test all eight year Olds. Add up all the scores. Divide that number by how many kids took the test. And the answer is the average score for eight year Olds. So if your score is 272 and the average is 275 then you are at an eight year old reading level. However if you’re 12 years old and your score is 272 then your reading age is also eight years. Side note most reading age tests don’t take comprehension in to account only ability to read the words.
In the USA, the metric used is grade level which is linked to standardized tests.
Certain newspapers (for example) will be theoretically for someone with a 12th grade reading level as opposed to a 6th grade reading level.
At least with children, one drawback is that a child can be reading at many grade levels above their actual grade level – i.e. a third grader can be reading at 12th grade reading level. However, they may lack the contextual ability and experience to truly understand the work.
I was in fourth grade when I first read Catcher In The Rye – I could understand the words and the plot but I really lacked any ability to have a mature understanding of the book until I re-read it in high school when I “got” it.
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