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Earlier this year, Travis Kelce, athlete and partner of Taylor Swift, made headlines for saying that he “can’t really read that well.” This was, he said, the most difficult part of appearing on SNL, because he had to read the scripts. Kelce’s comments were initially met with mockery, his admission turned into fodder for online trolls.
But I wasn’t laughing when I saw the headlines and read the articles. And no one else should have been, either. Low literacy is no laughing matter. There could be any number of reasons behind Kelce’s reading challenges. Whatever the reason, Kelce inadvertently highlighted a widespread issue through his admission: low literacy doesn’t discriminate.
Low literacy is more common than you might think. The ABS estimates that at least 44% of people in so-called Australia have low literacy levels.
If someone like Travis Kelce, with all his wealth and white male privilege, still has low literacy, then it will be far more difficult for individuals facing marginalisation to build their literacy skills and navigate the world of written information. Support is there, if people ask for it. But many people have developed strategies to hide their literacy challenges due to shame and stigma. Unfortunately, the online response to Travis Kelce would only reinforce those fears. I wish people understood. I wish they cared: Travis Kelce might never see their mocking comments. But their friends and family with low literacy will.
Society is built on an assumption of literacy, and written communication is the gateway to so many things.
How do you pay your bills if you can’t read what they’re telling you? How do you give your informed consent to any contract or written agreement if you struggle to decode what you’re consenting to? But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can unpick the assumption. We can open the gate, by removing judgment around low literacy and providing written information in various accessible formats.
It’s why I created All for Access, a disability-led accessible communication business. It’s why I advocate, everyday, to help people understand that plain language is for everyone, and that Easy Read versions are essential for all public-facing information.
For those who aren’t familiar with the terms, plain language is when information is presented in a way that is clearly organised and considers the needs of a target audience by minimising jargon or complicated words and explaining them when necessary.
Plain language means that a reader can find the information they’re looking for with minimal effort.
For instance, a CEO or politician benefits from the subheadings of plain language that allow them to skip to the relevant parts of a long report. Anyone can make slight adjustments to their writing to make it plainer.
Easy Read, on the other hand, is for people with low literacy. It uses specifically designed images to accompany most sentences, to support reader understanding.
Easy Read documents use short sentences, lots of white space and define hard words.
Best practice is for Easy Read documents to be tested by someone with low literacy. Easy Read should be created by trained professionals, and not by generative AI (that’s a whole other article!)
Beyond Easy Read and plain language, there are programs and initiatives that tackle decreasing literacy rates. Literacy specialists are working hard to improve the literacy of people of all ages in Lutruwita/Tasmania. You can learn about their efforts in Powerd Media’s podcast series, Literacy Legends.
We can all play a role in changing societal attitudes to low literacy and communicating in a way that makes the world a more accessible and inclusive space.