54% of Americans read below a sixth grade level

[Igel]

16. Define "literacy."

The definition in the US has changed a lot.

At one point, it was able to read the Gospels.

Later, if you could make your mark you were literate. Used to be that basic literacy, enough to write simple notes was full literacy. For legal purposes.

At other times, unless you were well versed in Shakepeare's sonnets and familiar Milton you weren't 'truly' literate.

Venezuela had a literacy campaign--illiterate to fully literate in 6 months of night school, spending a few days a week. Soviet literacy campaigns were no better in achieving high levels of a "fully literate" population. They were aiming for less than a 6th-grade level given either TX or Common Core standards.

Ivan IV of Russia was judged literate--but his letters are abysmal. (Had one professor try to get us students to write a grammar of his Russian, but what he used wasn't a "grammar" but a combination of able to spell common Russian words while trying to be all fancy and use Russian Church Slavic to show exactitudinally the manner in which elevatedly educationated were he. Sort of how he'd have put it. Instead of "to show exactly how highly educated he was." It came out a mess.

I've seen college juniors and seniors, at good universities, less literate than some of my high school students.