One in 10 young French people with reading difficulties, according to a study

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: AFP 17:52 p.m., June 06, 2023

One in ten young French people is "with reading difficulties" and nearly half of them is illiterate, reveals Tuesday a study by the Ministry of Education, which is based on tests conducted among the 750,000 participants in the Defense and Citizenship Day (JDC) in 2022. Of these young people of French nationality, aged 16 to 25, 11.2% "are in difficulty in the field of reading," says a note from the Depp, statistics agency of the Ministry of Education.

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10% of young people "with limited achievements"

It is first of all the level of reading comprehension (complex treatments) that distinguishes young people with difficulties from those who do not. Almost half of them can be considered "illiteracy". They are characterized in particular by "a very low or non-existent reading comprehension". Those who encounter the most severe difficulties, representing 4.9% of the total, are characterised by a "significant vocabulary deficit".

Then there are 10% of young people "with limited achievements", who "manage to compensate for their difficulties in accessing a certain level of understanding". Reading "remains, for them, a laborious activity, but one that they know how to implement to take advantage of it". Some 78.9% of young people who participated in the mandatory day of the JDC in 2022 are considered "effective readers".

Young people with reading difficulties "are less numerous as the level of education rises"

Not surprisingly, the Depp notes that young people with reading difficulties "are less and less numerous as the level of education rises". The survey, conducted annually since 2009, highlights a difference between boys and girls: 12.9% of boys are in difficulty, compared to 9.1% of girls. The difference is strong among the population with the lowest levels of education and performance converges from the baccalaureate level.

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The frequency of reading difficulties is more pronounced in the departments of the North (15.7% of young people with reading difficulties in the Aisne, 13.2% in the Somme), Nièvre, Yonne and overseas. But also in Ile-de-France, where the share of these young people with reading difficulties varies from 6% in Paris to 15.5% in Seine-Saint-Denis. On the other hand, it is lower than the national average in Brittany.

The Depp specifies that the reading of these results must take into account the fact that a new reading assessment test was offered to young people as part of the JDC in September 2019. New questions and control thresholds have been defined.