“Three-line summary, please.[1]” You can see this comment frequently in Korean social media these days. It is asking others to summarize the long length of postings. It seems like a light issue, but reveals the seriousness of current literacy reality of Korean. Literacy is the ability to read and understand the meaning of the text. In March 2021, EBS aired a six-part documentary series called “Your Literacy.” In a high school English class, Korean students had difficulty following the class because they did not know the meaning of translated Korean words from English words. According to EBS “Future Education Plus,” the basic illiteracy rate of Korean students is close to 1%, but the real illiteracy rate is about 75%, of those who cannot understand even after reading sentences. Therefore, the Korean language education system should be changed to improve students’ literacy.

           First, a national-level valuation of literacy by each grade should be conducted. According to the literacy evaluation result of 2,405 middle school seniors conducted by the Natmal Corp., 11% of respondents were at an elementary school level. It shows that students with poor literacy have problems following the classes of their grade. However, there is no national-level valuation of literacy in Korea currently. And the national-level valuation tests have not properly grasped the situation of students’ literacy levels. Thus, a national-level valuation of literacy should be conducted to identify students’ real literacy levels. Second, the proportion of Chinese character education should be increased in the formal curriculum. Korean is written in Hangeul, which is the Korean alphabet. However, the words often come from Chinese characters. So, if you know the meaning of the Chinese characters, it is easier to understand other words which consist of the same Chinese characters. In addition, you can infer the meaning of a word you’ve never seen before. However, in the current Korean language curriculum, Chinese character education is not mandatory for all grades, and in high school, it is classified as a second language elective course. The active Chinese character education in the Korean formal curriculum will serve as a foundation for students to improve their ability to understand the meaning of words. Third, schools should actively promote reading education. In order to improve literacy, it is necessary to continue to practice with certain rules, not fragmentary efforts, and reading books can be the answer. The aforementioned EBS “Your Literacy” says that reading skills are acquired the more books you read, and the prefrontal cortex responsible for information processing and metacognition is activated. This is why those who are skilled at reading through reading books are more likely to grasp the meaning of text than those who are not. Therefore, schools should provide education that encourages students to read to improve students’ literacy.

           Korea yet lacks awareness and seriousness of literacy. However, it is a serious problem that reading the same sentence over and over due to the lack of understanding the meaning, or giving up reading when its length is long. In a video-oriented society, students are increasingly reluctant to read long articles, and schools deliver information through short texts or videos. Thus, it is necessary to realize the reality of Korean students’ literacy, and the Korean language education system must be changed to improve the literacy of Korean students.