Little confession here: I’m a geek. While you’re out partying on Saturday night, I’m cuddled up with a warm study.

The latest object of my affection is the 2012 edition of the PIAAC, or Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. (The name itself could not be understood by most of the people it surveyed!) ^[1]

The PIAAC is a huge, statistically significant study of adult literacy in developed countries. Every 10 years, the OECD (that’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to us mortals) looks at the literacy skills of adults between 16 and 65.

The average American reads at the 7^th- to 8^th-grade level.

— The Literacy Project ^[2]

In the most recent study, what the researchers found was disheartening …

4% are nonliterate.

Some 4% of Americans (global literacy rate: 3%) have Below Level 1 literacy. That means they are nonliterate. They can’t read well enough to perform activities of daily living in a modern society — let alone to take a literacy test.

Most of them can locate a single piece of information in familiar copy. But most of them cannot review a simple table identifying three candidates and the number of votes they received to identify which candidate earned the fewest votes.

14% have below-basic literacy levels.

14% of Americans (global literacy rate: 12%) have level 1 literacy. That means they can read and write at the below-basic level.

Most of them can identify which candidate earned the fewest votes from a simple table identifying three candidates and the number of votes they received. Most cannot count the number of countries in which the generic drug market accounts for 10% or more of drug sales from two paragraphs and a chart of generic drug use in 15 countries.

34% have basic literacy levels.

Half of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at the 8th-grade level.

— Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ^[3]

About one-third of Americans (global literacy rate: 34%) have Level 2 literacy. That means they have the ability to read and write at a basic level.

Most can count the number of countries in which the generic drug market accounts for 10% or more of drug sales from two paragraphs and a chart of generic drug use in 15 countries. But most cannot identify the link leading to the organization’s phone number from a website with several links, including “contact us” and “FAQ.”

Note that at this point, we have reached more than half of your audience members.

The people who manage this study are careful not to assign grade levels to these groups, but we can do a little correlating. Here’s what we know:

• Half of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at the 8th-grade level, according to the OECD. ^[4]
• The average American reads at the 7th- to 8th-grade level, according to The Literacy Project. ^[5]
• Medical information for the public should be written at no higher than an eighth-grade reading level, according to the American Medical Association, National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

So let’s estimate that the midline here is the break between 7^th- and 8^th-grade reading levels. That means half of U.S. adults read at the 7^th-grade level and below, and half read at the 8^th-grade level and above.

36% have intermediate literacy levels.

More than one-third of Americans (global literacy rate: 39%) have Level 3 literacy. That means they can read and write at an intermediate level.

Most can identify the link leading to the organization’s phone number from a website with several links, including “contact us” and “FAQ.” But most cannot click to the second page of search results from a library website to identify the author of a book called Ecomyth.

12% have proficient literacy levels.

Now we reach the cognitively elite: 12% of Americans (global literacy rate: 12%) have what is now called Level 4/5 literacy. At Level 4, that means they can read and write at a proficient level.

Most can click to the second page of search results from a library website to identify the author of a book called Ecomyth. But most cannot review search results from a library website to identify a book suggesting that the claims made both for and against genetically modified foods are unreliable.

If you write for these proficient readers, you’ll miss 88% of adults in the United States.

2% have high literacy levels.

This year, for the first time ever, PIAAC combined the fourth and fifth literacy levels. That’s because there were no longer enough people at the highest level to count.

“Across all countries, only 2 percent of adults performed at Level 5 on many of the variables in the literacy and numeracy scales,” researchers report. Because of the low number, these are included among the 12% in Level 4/5.

This is the only group that can identify from search results a book suggesting that the claims made both for and against genetically modified foods are unreliable.

Write for these folks, and you’ll miss 98% of your readers!

U.S. literary average: below-basic

Put it all together, and what do you get? Our average literacy score of 270 (global literacy rate: 273) out of 500 puts U.S. adults at Level 2, or below-basic, literacy.

That places the U.S. overall literacy score at lower than the international average. But note that Japan and Finland, at the top of the list, have nothing to brag about.

In this environment, how well are we doing reaching these folks with our blog posts, intranet stories or email newsletters?

As George Bernard Shaw wrote:

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

Learn more

• Reach all of your readers, even those with low literacy
• Readability helps everyone, even highly literate people
• Get more data from the National Center for Education Statistics

Get more information about national assessment, levels of literacy, the literacy gap, how literacy rates vary among high school students and those ages 15 and under, and English literacy among foreign-born adults from the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education.

^[1] “Literacy, Numeracy, and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among U.S. Adults: Results from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012,” Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC

^[2] Lisa Marchand, “What is readability and why should content editors care about it?” Center for Plain Language, March 22, 2017

^[3] Valerie Strauss, “Hiding in plain sight: The adult literacy crisis,” Washington Post, Nov. 1, 2016

^[4] Strauss

^[5] Marchand

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Nope, this isn’t a joke about writers’ math skills: Just 12% of adults around the world are numerically literate, according to an enormous global literacy study.

Which means that 88% of your audience members may find your bar charts, financial objectives and other communications involving numbers discombobulating.

Welcome to the world of numeracy, or numerical literacy, today, according to the 2013 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC.

Numeracy: the ability to understand and work with numbers.

PIAAC is an enormous, every-10-year literacy assessment, developed and organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The study seeks to determine how well adults in the age group 16-65 are prepared to function in today’s society.

Here’s how they stack up …

How low can you go?

The results? Worldwide, adults weighed in at an average numeracy rate of 269 out of 500. That puts them at level 2, or below basic, numeracy skills.

Number crunching

Only nine countries, led by Japan, achieve even basic average numeracy rates

That means that, on average, these adults can figure out how many layers of candles are packed in a box of 105, with five rows of seven candles per layer. But they struggle to calculate trip expenses at 35 cents a mile plus $40 a day from a motor vehicle logbook with columns for date of trip, odometer readings and distance traveled.

How can you communicate numerical information in an environment where many people barely understand simple math?

___

Source: “Literacy, Numeracy, and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among U.S. Adults: Results from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies 2012,” Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, National Center for Education Statistics

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It never fails.

When I talk in my writing workshops about the importance of making copy easy to read and understand, there’s always one person who can’t believe the advice applies to her.

“Are you kidding?” she gasps. “I’m writing to executives/pharmacists/school district superintendents/telecomm engineers/financial planners/horse breeders. These folks are superbly educated, brilliant and divine. There’s no way they’ll read anything that easy.”

So you think your audience wants it to be harder? Think again.

1. Start with average.

The average U.S. adult reading level is 8th grade, research shows.

Is your audience average? Yes: Target 7th- or 8th-grade reading level.

Not so average?

2. Then consider going lower.

Some people are less literate than others. These demographics and preferences may affect your audience’s literacy levels, according to the world’s a huge global literacy test, the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies:

Education. Education is the most reliable predictor of literacy, according to OECD. On average, literacy scores increase by 10 points for each year a person remains in school. The lower your readers’ level of education, the easier your copy should be to read.

Age. One-third of Americans age 65 or older fall into the lowest level of prose literacy. According to the PIAAC, reading and numbers skills:

• Increased from the teenage years through the mid 40s
• Plunged some 25 points between the 40 to 54 age group and the 55 to 64 age group
• Dropped 30 more points between the 55 to 64 age group and the oldest adults

In most countries, older people have lower literacy skills. That’s partly because seniors, on average, spent fewer years in school than young people.

Writing for readers 65 and older? Make your copy easier to read.

Industry. People with poor reading proficiency tend to have more health problems, for instance.  So if you’re writing to health care consumers, consider aiming lower.

How low? The best reading level for health information is 5^th grade, say researchers Michael D. Aldridge and Kenneth Brownson.

Place of birth. One-quarter of American immigrants have Level 1 — nonliterate — reading skills, according to the 1993. (And you should hear me try to say “Good morning” in Finnish.)

Economic level. More than four in 10 people with the lowest literacy rates on all three scales were impoverished.

Occupation. In general, the higher the literacy skills, the higher the job ranking, according to the 2003 PIAAC. Managers and professionals, for instance, tend to have higher literacy skills than technicians, craft workers or machine operators. And people with high literacy skills are less likely to be blue-collar workers than those with low skills.

Folks with Level 1 literacy on all three scales were far more likely to hold service jobs than people with Level 5 — college level — literacy, according to the 1993 PIAAC. The same thing is true of laborers, assemblers, fishermen or farmers.

Types of devices. Also, reduce the grade level when you’re writing for mobile devices. Mobile screens cut understanding in half, according to new research by R.I. Singh and colleagues from the University of Alberta.

3. Consider going higher.

But your audience members are rocket scientists or brain surgeons, right? They’ve had years of education.

Not surprisingly, people who had the highest literacy levels on all three scales were much more likely to hold managerial, professional or technical jobs than were respondents with the lowest literacy levels, according to NAAL. However, a few people with Level 1 and Level 2 literacy also held managerial, professional or technical positions.

In general, the higher the literacy skills, the higher the job ranking. Managers and professionals, for instance, tend to have higher literacy skills than technicians, craft workers or machine operators. And people with high literacy skills are less likely to be blue-collar workers than those with low skills.

While most managers and professionals have medium to high literacy skills — in the Netherlands, for example, 80% of managers and professionals have Level 3 literacy or above — not all do. In the Netherlands, 20% of managers and professionals have low levels of literacy. And in Chile, 60% or more managers and professionals have low literacy skills.

4. Consider going lower.

Some executives and entrepreneurs have attention deficit disorder (ADD).

Some people, apparently, turn their super-fast ADD brains into a professional asset.

“Hyperactivity can be transformed into hyperproductivity,” writes Julie Deardorff, a reporter at The Monterey County Herald. She quotes one executive who says that if he didn’t already have ADD, he’d find a way to get it.

Winston Churchill is believed to have had ADD. So, reportedly, do David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airways; Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s; and Charles Schwab, founder and chairman of Charles Schwab & Co.

“I could manage — with effort — the little chunks of text you see in a memo or a newspaper. But a long book or a speech was almost impenetrable.”

— Charles Schwab, founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation

Schwab is also dyslexic.

“Some of the most accomplished CEOs have risen to the business world’s highest ranks despite having difficulty doing something as basic as reading a memo,” writes Mark C. Thompson in Chief Executive magazine.

What’s it like to be a dyslexic executive? According to Chief Executive:

“I could manage — with effort — the little chunks of text you see in a memo or a newspaper,” Schwab says. “But a long book or a speech was almost impenetrable.”

Let’s make sure “almost impenetrable” doesn’t apply to our executive communications.

5. Consider going lower.

Of course, your CEO doesn’t have to be dyslexic for the rules of clear, concise copy to make sense. Information overload can be disabling, too. And busy executives tend to suffer from it most.

I’ve always argued that if you think your audience members are especially elevated or educated, then you should make your copy more accessible.

Highly educated executives, after all, tend to have more stuff to read and less time to read it. So you’re obligated to make your messages for those folks even easier to process.

6. Consider going lower.

But even if you’re writing to brain surgeons and rocket scientists, keep your grade level average low. That’s because:

• People don’t read at their grade level. On average, high school graduates read at the 9^th-grade level, according to William H. Dubay, readability consultant at Plain Language Services. College graduates at the 12^th-grade level.
• Over time, reading skills decline. On average, Dubay says, adults read at five grade levels lower than the last grade they completed.
• Everyone benefits from readability. Highly literate people read a message 64% faster, understood it 13% better and enjoyed reading it 30% more when it was easier to read, according to a study by the Nielsen Norman Group.
• People don’t want to read at their grade level. That’s why The Wall Street Journal is written at the 11^th-grade level. (The front page weighs in at 9^th-grade.)

“People prefer to read and get information at a level below their capacity,” says Douglas Mueller, president of the Gunning-Mueller Clear Writing Institute. “Even a Harvard University professor prefers to get information without strain.”

Nobody wants it to be harder. No matter your audience, make your message easier to read.

___

Sources: Michael D. Aldridge, “Writing and Designing Readable Patient Education Materials,” Nephrology Nursing Journal, vol. 31, no. 4, July/August 2004, p. 373-377

Kenneth Brownson, “Literacy: A Problem that Managers Must Handle,” Hospital Materiel Management Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 1, August 1998, p. 37-47

William H. Dubay, “The Basics of Plain Language,” Impact Information: Plain Language Services, 2005

John Taylor Gatto, “The National Adult Literacy Survey,” The Odysseus Group

Douglas Mueller, “The Fog Index,” Folio:

Robert Longley, “U.S. High School Graduation Rate Hits All-time High,” About.com, July 5, 2004

TJ Larkin & Sandar Larkin, “Most Adults Can’t Understand Our Health Communication,” Larkin Page,No. 54, January 2007

TJ Larkin & Sandar Larkin, “Patients Don’t Remember Doctors’ Instructions,” Larkin Page, No. 78, January 2008

“The State of Literacy in America: Estimates at the Local, State and National Levels” (PDF), National Institute for Literacy, 1998

“What do low literacy and limited English proficiency mean?” U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, FHWA.dot.gov

Learn more:

• “Creative learning: How dyslexic CEOs have turned a weakness into a leadership strength” by Mark C. Thompson, Chief Executive, April 1, 2004
• “A few ADD sufferers see disorder as a gift” by Julie Deardorff, The Monterey County Herald, Nov. 26, 2005
• Delivered From Distraction by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey
• The Gift of ADHD by Lara Honos-Webb

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