I would guess about 11?
I remember reading years ago that the tabloid newspapers were written in language that could be understood by people with a reading age of 11 I think - no higher.
It is 9. The scary thing is that there will be a huge difference between the richer and poorer areas of the country and that9 might actually be āaspirationalā in some areasā¦
Holy Hell - that is the average !! This means there are millions of adults with a reading age lower than 9 years old. I am guessing the majority are Everton supporters but even soā¦
I started reading āThe Witcherā (Andrzej Sapkowski) recently (I havenāt read anything for ages) the French translation. 1st it was really strange encountering the PassĆ© Simpleā again and on every page there were words i hadnāt a clue of their meaning. It just so happened my son started reading the same book at about the same time and mentionned about the 3 to 5 words per page he didnāt know the meaning of.
Itās beautifully translated when you understand the words. I guess my reading age is about 16 in French perhaps a little better in English but it goes to show. (Scientific and historic books and papers Iām a bit more comfortable with (I can actually be bothered to look up the words I donāt understand in some scientific works which does fill the gaps)).
Theyāre called Sun āreadersā.
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We did reading age tests in Junior 4 at school. Was a big thing (aged 11) Mine was 16 but then I was and had been devouring books for years.
What happened since, anthropomorphic personification knows.
Thereās quite a bit of confusion about this actually. The article queries the figure rather than confirming it. Iām having a hard time finding a definitive source for that figure.
Yeah; if anything, eight is too high for readers of that particular rag.
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Like you I was well read at that age but definitely not as competent (just loved reading certain books ā¦ and comics of course).
I remember the day I decided that English literature was a pile of fucking shit and never bothered again. We were reading Macbeth and the teacher asked me (out of the blue) to explain the relation between 2 characters. I gave a garbled but imo correct response, the teacher just growled no thatās not it. Another student stuck their hand up and answered giving the same response but in a very coherent manner, apparently this was the good reply. I petulently put my hand up and said to the teacher āthatās what I saidā she just went red.
Later I looked at the the Macbeth study book and there was the response word for word what the other student had said. Shakespeare was crap anyway and for me the whole idea of reading a book destroyed. I just donāt get this crap about reading plays any way surely that should be done in drama not for literature. (Particularly if they are just translated copies of French plays. 
I was crap at writing anyway. 
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Your story is indictment of the teacher, not English Literature.
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As I said that moment was the last straw for me. I think itās an idictment of study and academical side of English Literature (how itās taught and what that imposes). Adding at that age. I think many āteachersā are very 'stodgy over these things came across the same type of crap in France with my kids reading Moliere etc. Thereās little freedom to use your imagination or talk about what your 'getting from a ābookā itās crap!
What i said does not include all thatās written in English, I have read many books since I just gave up on the study of it. I enjoy reading and making my own perceptions.
My point about studing plays still stands!
How do you assess reading age? Say, Roald Dahl or Enid Blytonā¦what reading age is that? I know my daughterās unusually bright but she was reading those books at the age of four.
Jnr reads when and only absolutely necessary (and itās not for the want of a LOT of trying) Father Christmas was very clever when he sent 3 massive Rabbit care books and insisted they had to be read cover to cover before we could get bunnies. Clever fellow that man in red
But then at that age I wasnāt in the Royal Ballet.
How the fuckā¦ā¦
Sure, that came later and now nobody can get you out of your tights and tutu, right? 
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ā¦ and now I assume thereās 3 massive bunnies in the house hold. 
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That 1) they got back at more than 100% and 2) would have hurt the general public more than the banking industry as a whole had they not.
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I understand and agree with what you are saying. But it feels like holding the public for ransom. Besides, all those reckless executives walked away with handsome severance payments.
How? The term too big to fail doesnāt come from a reference to the bank itself, but due to the effects allowing it to do so would have the general public. If there is legit criticism of the response to that crisis it is not in the bail out itself, but in the limitations of legislation and regulation to prevent banks doing the same things again, and in allowing them to to get even bigger and interconnected, thus carrying an even greater risk to the public related to their next bout of risky behavior.
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Didnāt Iceland refuse to bail out the banks? From memory they had a couple of years of recession and then their economy recovered well. I guess on an individual and small scale actions could be taken - on a world - wide scale much more problematic.
Still amazed that there were no prosecutions.
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This was not by choice though. Iceland as a country simply didnt have the same capacity to do anything about it. The effect of their inaction was they as a government required a bail out from the IMF and had to look to other countries to insure their deposits and provide lending capabilities. Who is going to be able to step in to provide those options for a collapsed US banking system? Especially given how its collapse would have negatively impacted the rest of the global economy in a way that Icelandās problems didnāt.
In the US they thought they could let Bear Stears go, and doing so was a needed warning to the rest to shape up. What they didnt appreciate at that point was how far down the path the whole industry, so once they started facing up to Merrill Lynch being on the precipice, there were middle of the road projections that the the snowball effect could result in only Goldman being strong enough to remain standing. While there was surely a lot of self interest involved in the negotiations for the bail out, the reason everyone came together was because there was a certainty of how catastrophic it would have been the global economy, meaning you and I are fucked, to have let it play out.
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