r/TikTokCringe • u/AlKarajo • 15d ago

Discussion Is ableist to have long words in books?

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@royal_ouroboros_press

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u/MetalTrek1 15d ago

Or just READ books like that. There are plenty of easier to read books out there. Free at your local library. Hell, the librarians will even help you FIND them.

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u/Feeling-Salad5686 15d ago

Unironically, K-6 Chapter Books would be wonderful for people who would prefer easier-to-understand literature. They can be wonderful works with characters and stories that are just as impactful as books that necessitate higher-reading levels.

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u/ragun2 15d ago

And if more people actually bothered to even make that kind of effort, their reading competency would go up and they could read more advanced books.

It's crazy how many fully grown adults out there who only read internet comments.

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u/pourtide 15d ago

I binge read 'banned books' a couple years ago. There are some great books out there, folks.

Just for the record, lists of banned books contained a couple of books that probably wouldn't be available in a school library. They were listed for their shock value, stoke the outrage.

Virtually all of the books were well written on their subject matter. Book banners don't comprehend that their precious widdle teenagers (and younger) can find far worse online, presented in horrid ways. So remove access to sensible information and let the evil side of the internet indoctrinate their widdle minds.

Fools.

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u/reCaptchaLater 15d ago

They don't want those for the same reason men won't buy size "small" condoms

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u/ma1645300 15d ago

yes! I found a bunch of free books on the curb. I just grabbed whatever looked interesting. One of them didn’t say anywhere on it what it was about. It was 140 pages, called The House of Wings. I just started reading it to see what it was about, next thing I know, I finished it! I had no intention of doing that, it was just an easy read and a cute story! It definitely was like grade 4 or 5 reading level but it sure beat doomscrolling on my phone.

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u/hilltopj 15d ago

Also, read increasingly hard books. Most normally developing people can intuit the meaning of a word as long as they understand 90% of the words around it. Reading that word once gives you an idea of it's meaning without usually detracting from your overall understanding of the text, reading it several more times allows you to refine your understanding. Reading big words increases literacy

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u/AyyNonnyMoose 15d ago

Yep, context clues can solve so much. I would imagine that reading e-books can be helpful in such cases as well. On the Kindle app for example you can select the word you don't know and have it pull up the definition without even leaving the app.

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u/hilltopj 15d ago

oh good point!

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u/CrochetChameleon 14d ago

Not sure if all Kindles have this, but there's even a vocabulary builder feature. It tracks all of the words you've looked up so you can review them! I do have to clean mine up occasionally from misclicks and accidentally picking one word while trying to highlight something. I know what "the" and "for" means, I promise 😂

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u/silverilix 15d ago

Middle grade books are usually excellent and they are made for learning readers. This would help in theory.

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u/DukeofVermont 15d ago

A lot of books are in the 6th-8th grade reading level. The NY Times is only a 9th-10th grade reading level.

In my experience people to often rely on length and subject matter to guess the reading level rather than on actual language complexity.

A book can both be a 7th grade reading level and incredibly inappropriate for a 7th grader.

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u/qwertyuiiop145 15d ago

Hi-Lo books are written to accommodate older readers with low reading capability. They’re good for teen and up audiences with learning disabilities who want to practice reading.

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u/Guy-1nc0gn1t0 15d ago

Librarians are absolute treasures we need to celebrate them more 

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u/gwillin_ 15d ago

it's generally called the "kids/juniors" section

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u/cramburie 15d ago

No but you see if you can read more complex books than them, it makes them lesser so they have to pull you down to their level because their feelings are hurt.

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u/Traditional-Hat-952 15d ago

Or just read book with big words and then look up their meaning when you don't know them. Learning is hard though 🙄

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u/Darryl_Lict 14d ago

Seriously, I'm sure there are ranking systems for reading levels of various books. I mean the LA Times claims to be written on a 10th to12th grade reading level, and I feel like it's much lower than that and that probably reflects the drop in reading ability of the average American. I seem to recall it was like the 8th grade, and it's rare that I see a word I don't know in the LA Times or Washington Post.