Re: Children - OT, sorry!

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
news:1iqd1ep.lwsfth151rpreN%real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

nigel <useweb@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:gfh252$hdp$1@xxxxxxxx:

Mandy wrote:
[snip]
I think the test thing meant 11-13 not 9-11
though! :o)

H'mmm, thirteen qualifies as a fully fledged teen, doesn't it?

Only just! lol

13-18 years old - those six years are the teenaged years. It's not
`only just' teenaged when you're 13 - it's `exactly in the teenaged
range'.


What about 19 year olds?

Durr. Yes, quite right. Call me an idiot.


Nope, just human!

[snip]

Childrens' books when I was young usually had a suggested age range
printed on the back[1]. Everyone I knew read books that were `far
too old for them' according to adult judgement. My conclusion was
that the standard judgement of adults on what's suitable for what
age of child is wrong.

By the sound of it that test is wrong too!

It's wrong in what it says, but that doesn't mean it's *useless*. The
trick is to figure out how to use the analysis you get. But I don't
know what to make of these numbers.


Me either!

I'd want more than just a single numerical score from a machine
analysis of my writing if I wanted to make use of that analysis.


Too right! I was just after a guide though :o)

Apparently, my prose (the chunk I just tried) needs 15 years of
formal eduated to read it easily! - according to the Gunning Fog
Index.


Blimey!

That means the index states that if you've only had school up to
16, it's beyond you. It's not until you're in your second year of
university that you can expect to be able to read it, allegedly.

I don't know what you put in but not everyone goes to Uni (me and
Steve are 2 examples)

This is the text that I threw at it. You tell me if you can read it
okay. If you can, your reading ability is better than you `ought' to
have according to the on-line analysis you're using for your own
writing, since you've not had enough education to be able to cope.
Allegedly. (see why I say `bollocks' to this stuff?)


Too right!

=======================================================================
This is my account of the mistreatment I suffered during a visit to
the Victoria Central Hospital dental clinic on 30/9/08. The wording
is very close to a complaint I have lodged with my wife's support. I
lodged that complaint because after being subjected to the
mistreatment I detail below, the dental surgery chose to refuse to see
me at all again unless I followed inappropriate `special arrangements'
that it applied to me without consulting me.

This document is a bit scrappy because I find it very hard to write
about the events of 30/9/08. I found what was done to me by NHS staff
that day to be very traumatic---it takes a lot of effort for me to be
able to write about this stuff at all, and it'd take me several weeks
to edit these words into a shape that I would be happy with. But I
think that this document and the accompanying letter from my wife
provide a clear enough description of events.

The list of enumerated points towards the end of this document is a
clear statement of what I consider the most important misdeeds towards
me.

This note is attached to my dental records because it is perfectly
clear that the staff at VCH lied about the abuse they subjected me to
on 30/9/08 in some fashion unknown to me, but obviously designed to
blame me for suffering a panic attack due to their mistreatment of me.
The purpose of that is obviously so that I get punished rather than
them.

Punishment is the only explanation I can think of for the decision to
deny me access to NHS dental treatment at Bridle Road clinic, the only
dental surgery I've been comfortable with since moving to the Wirral.

I want to ensure that the truth about events is known so that I am not
treated badly by NHS staff in the future.
=======================================================================


It sounds like they mistreated you badly! :o(


To which claim, I say `bollocks'.


Too right!

The other indices give different answers - varying from 8th grade
(13- 14 years old according to the Coleman Liau index - about
right, I reckon) up to 13th grade (18-19 - university/college -
bloody nonsense, according to Flesh Kincaid and ARI).

It sounds like they need to find a better system!

I'd like to know how they verify this stuff. Anyway, point is,
something that applies to typical US people isn't generally applicable
- and they're particularly bad at literacy in the USA.


Ah right!

Okay, UK literacy is worse than it used to be, but still...


I guess some people just never "get" reading and writing :o(

[snip]

The third was a bit convoluted and I wouldn't expect an average
under- 12 kid to be entirely happy with it but I'd be horrified if
a 14 year old had more trouble with it than a normal adult - they'd
class as `semi-literate' in my book, if that were the case. But
the sentence is convoluted and could certainly be improved - except
that I wanted it to be convoluted to wind up the recipient.

It sounds like it could have worked?

You tell me:

"This note is attached to my dental records because it is perfectly
clear that the staff at VCH lied about the abuse they subjected me to
on 30/9/08 in some fashion unknown to me, but obviously designed to
blame me for suffering a panic attack due to their mistreatment of
me."

Yep, all one sentence.


Oh yeah!

[snip]

Never trust a Web page that talks about `math'.

Ah right... typically American?

Well, American at least. An important point is that the USA has
particular problems with literacy.


Oh right :o(

And before anyone goes on about me being an ignorant bigot, I am
reporting what Americans have told me. I have a careful analysis
charting the decline of US literacy in the latter half of the 20th
century from a US citizen who was very concerned about the decline of
education in the land of his birth.


Understandably by the sound of it!

[snip]

So maybe what I've written so far *is* suitable for a 9 year old?

What you've written is almost certainly suitable for *A* nine year
old. But it's also suitable for some 6 year olds and some 16 year
olds.


Ah right!

Reading ability doesn't get better for all with age following the
curve that these tests assume, that's the problem. And there's a
particular problem with using US tests, because literacy in the USA is
generally very poor.


Gotchya :o)

For sure you need to write differently for different target audiences,
but you can't do it just on *age*. You need to consider the
individuals concerned, and how the hell can someone do that?


Too right!

I can't think of any way of doing it short of something like actually
visiting a school and reading the stories out and seeing how they go
down - for example.


I can't afford a CRB check though :o(

I mean, some kids go to really really bad schools and never get the
hang of reading properly at all. Other kids go to decent schools and
get good at reading quickly. Some kids really really like books;
others don't. Some might like reading conceptually, have a strong
desire to read, but find it hard for some reason - I've got a slydexic
little bro who was in that position.

(he learnt to read properly fluently with the aid of the Beano -
seriously. He was fed up with not being able to read without huge
difficulty. So he started out with the Beano comic, then moved on to
the `Beano comic library' (small comic books with a single relatively
long stories in each), and then borrowed all my Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy books, resulting in them ending up rather more battered
than when I'd left 'em on the shelves to go off to university. As he
put it, I should be glad that he'd got the hang of reading. And I was
- well, books are for reading, right? And he'd read 'em and loved 'em
- brill! - but I did give him a `look'. By the time he hit
university, he could read very well, which was kind of useful under
the circumstances...)


Right again!

Rowland.


--
Stay Safe, Mandy
Money talks, chocolate sings
http://mandy2.bravehost.com/
.

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