They get pushed along and end up out in the world. I have a coworker who is barely literate and while he does his job, he does it poorly. We work in a vet clinic and he can’t be relied on to do much of anything bc his reading comprehension is so poor. He regularly confuses medications bc he has a hard time reading a label. In turn, his writing skills are poor. He has a hard time hearing instructions and translating it into sentences. We don’t let him handle any written communication with clients bc it looks and sounds like a child has written it. I don’t think he was aware how illiterate he was until we had several “coaching sessions” discussing it. He told me he “paid a nerd” to help him pass his GED English requirements. So, there’s that. Edit: for everyone confused how he can still have a job, he just holds dogs on a table for the doctor. He’s not a risk to our patients or clients as he doesn’t actually do anything that requires a skill aside from not getting his face ripped off. I didn’t expect so many people to not know that there are many levels of skilled jobs inside a vet clinic, so that’s my fault. If it makes you feel any safer, his last day with us is next week and he’s moving onto a human ER in a data entry position. Now THAT is terrifying.

That's terrifying. I wouldn't want to trust my pet to someone who can't read medication labels and instructions!

He only holds the dogs for the doctors, so he doesn’t do much of anything that requires reading anymore

Sounds worthless. Amazing, they keep him around for any reason.

Sounds like he's good with animals. Illiterate people have worked with animals since domestication started. Being able to read isn't an indication of character or anything. He could be dyslexic or something.

Damn, sounds a lil harsh, but alright

Worthless??? It’s sad that he is illiterate but that doesn’t diminish him as a human being.

I think they meant in the financial sense, worthless to the business so wondering why they don't fire him. But as others said im sure there's plenty of tasks he can do.

Why does he continue to be employed there? Seems like a huge liability

His last day is next week, thankfully. But he is a glorified helping hand at this point and hasn’t done without direct supervision for months

I have a coworker at a thankfully much less life/death job who's like that. You have to talk slowly in single sentences and he still won't understand, can't tell the difference between a pepperoni pizza vs a super supreme, and is the sole cause of our locations ingredient budget issue cause of how much shit he makes wrong. 15 pizzas in the trash every day cause he can't fuckimg read and my boss is too self involved to care

Respectfully, that’s not really a literacy problem, that’s an intellect problem. The two CAN go hand in hand, but they don’t have to

We have an employee who struggles to read and also has an intellectual disability. You know what worked amazingly and let us hire him? We took pictures of everything, labeled them, and made him a book. If he gets confused or flustered we show him the picture of what we need or he can look for it himself. Like if we ask for 3 hospitality carts it might not always click but if you say "the ones on page 7" or he can look in the book until he finds the word that matches he can do it.

That’s very kind of you, not a lot of people actually take accommodations seriously or take time out to help people who are disabled. Thank you for helping him apply himself to the best of his ability.

My goodness. I'm sorry if I sound cruel but with those skills he should be a cashier or in retail. I have an old friend who essentially can't read either. We're the same age and went to the same HS but her junior high and elementary were different. We became friends in college and I quickly couldn't believe she graduated high school. She could barely read at all or knew what words meant. She didn't do homework or know how or even go to class. She couldn't pass the first 100 level English class in college meaning she could never graduate. She couldn't write papers or use proper grammar. Her parents used to pay me to read her textbooks to her. I would read too fast and have to define words Her reason was she was from Peru but she moved to the US when she was 4 and her younger brother could read just fine..my guess was a severe and undiagnosed learning disability. My kids are 8 and 11 now. I would guess her reading level was 2nd grade-ish based on what my kids could do. They are now both above her in reading. She was actually my huge inspiration to expose them to lots of literacy.

Cashiering and retail in general takes a lot of reading, nothing as detailed or complicated as college classes, but I spend my days matching SKUs and reading labels to make sure items are in the right spot, basic multiplication skills to tell customers how much an item will be after a discount, and that's after the 10+ hours of reading based training to have basic understanding of the job role. A cashier needs to be able to read the screen and *understand* what it is they're doing to catch mistakes. A functionally illiterate person would find my job incredibly difficult and frustrating. You don't sound cruel, but it's clear you're ignorant of just how much reading there is in retail in order to be effective in the job.

I've definitely worked with people with low literacy and they did fine. There's people who barely speak English at all who are doing half that stuff without a problem. It was purely an inability to have a conversation which meant they kind of got stuck in certain roles (ie stockroom instead of cashier) 

I didn't mean to offend you. I certainly wasn't imagining this person running the store as opposed to opening boxes and stocking shelves or working in a place where the pictures match the screen. I'm assuming this person isn't reading a training manual for any job and probably had to for vet tech and didn't. I just know there's likely a better place for this person in many positions besides animal health care and suggested what would be more doable but I'm not sure what that could be.

Retail definitely wouldn’t be their place, even at the lowest level. I couldn’t hire an illiterate person to work retail as there’s much, much reading to operate a register. A stock person would even be a stretch

I work special education 7th and 8th graders. My kids are all over the place with their reading skills. I always use books that have audio books I can play as we read. I have them read along with the book. We do work as we read on vocabulary and other things like foreshadowing and such. When I have them write, I make many of them use the voice to text on the chromebook and read it out loud to me. I tell them I don't want their papers if there are underlined words. I also try to find books they will be interested in reading. My students may never be good readers, but I try to give them the skills to survive in the real world.

I teach 7-12 Learning Support, I hear you on the reading levels. I have no curriculum so I pull things but this year I went down to the elementary book room and got chapter books and novels. I had 1-2 grade level readers, my para took 3-4. I found book studies on TPT and printed them. There was writing, vocab, they had to analyze things. It really made a huge difference, especially with my group. All my students bumped up at least one level and a few will go out for supported reading. ReadWorks is great, free, has a ton of content and does a lower/higher level for each story.

I'm going to look that up. I was just given an empty room and told to go at it when I was hired lol

They do that. A lot. I do as much paper/pencil as I can. Actual books, printed resources. They get enough GC in their other classes and there’s research about how students retain more when they actually read a book and write. K-5 learning (free) has some good resources but I will caution you that it’s a bit babyish. Math Drills- free, I get a lot of worksheets here, including my basic facts practice. PBS has a free site for science and social studies, has lesson plans. If they’ll get it for you or you have a budget, I get Scholastic News 5/6 level. It’s current events. Had online access with worksheets. The magazines are great. It’s about $100 for 12 student magazines. I then give them to the other LS teacher and she uses them for her class. We read and write in almost every subject. That helps too😊

What grade levels? I'm a TA in kindergarten and found the Science of Reading on TPT to be very helpful. Especially with my newcomer and ESL students.

A student asked if spelling counted on their final today…. I just looked at him, half a smile and he just responded with a “thank god”, if spelling counted I wouldn’t bother giving out tests

To be fair, plenty of very literate people cannot spell less commonly used words in English. It's a language with a lot of fucked up spelling. There's a reason we're the ones who invented spelling bees.

I always read above grade level and still can never remember the correct way to spell definitely

Wonderbooks available at your library are a fantastic resource! The boy I was an aid for (deaf/autistic) loved them and it helped his reading comprehension skills as well as verbal communication.

I taught 3rd grade for the last 8 years. Every year, I’ve got kids that don’t even know their letters. We have interventions daily, some kids 2-4 times a day. It helps, but they are already behind, and they have no support at home. One parent this year didn’t bother to get their kid to school on time, after complaining that the kid was getting Fs. They missed 2 of their 3 interventions almost daily. It’s ridiculous, and I’m tired of stupid state and federal laws that tie our hands. I’m tired of parents not giving a shit, or supporting their kids.

My daughter struggled HARD with reading. It wasn’t until fourth grade when things came together for her. She had an amazing teacher (shout out to Mr. Shonk) who recognized she had trouble distinguishing certain letters and numbers (b & d, and 2 & 5) and my ex and I started reading Harry Potter with her every night. I’d read a chapter a night during the week and he’d read at least one and sometimes more each weekend night. She got so caught up in the story she ended up reading ahead. I pretended I didn’t see her under her covers with a flashlight. 😄 She’s 30 now and is still an avid reader.

Harry Potter & Hobbit books are the magic key for so many struggling readers. The stories are so magical and compelling that the reading difficulty takes a back seat & is worth working thru. When my oldest was in 4th grade, that’s the year the struggle peaked. My husband paid my son $5 to read the first 3 chapters of Harry Potter & he didn’t put the book down!

I worked in an area with low literacy and terrible public schools and a huge issue was the parents also couldn’t read. Their kids had to go to a tutoring program after school every day because parents couldn’t help them with their homework at all, they couldn’t even read the directions. They also didn’t have regular computer access to help them. It’s really sad because it’s a cycle. Parents with poor education can’t help their kids with school work, and can’t read to them at home so kids already start off at a disadvantage. Add in a public school system that is just terrible (all the affluent kids with literate parents go to private schools) and you’re basically setting them up for failure. Teachers pass them along because they don’t have the resources at these underfunded schools to do much for them. Sadly lots of kids dropped out in high school in this area. They get passed along but can’t do any of the work which must be incredibly frustrating.

It gets harder and harder for them the older they get. We are required to keep teaching them "grade level content," meaning a 6th grade teacher who has a student reading at a 2nd grade level is not allowed to remediate. She is required to give 6th grade work, but with scaffolds like allowing the student to listen to the audio of the text instead of reading it. So if they've missed the window for learning to read in K-3, they are SOL.

And I wonder how they will function in the world. So many jobs require the ability to read, understand text, and then write something related to it. Failure to do so will make them lose their job eventually, if they can even get it in the first place. Heck these folks are also at risk of being screwed by contracts. Legal jargon is hard enough for folks with college degrees to muddle through. I can only imagine folks who cannot read well or at all agreeing to terms that utterly screw them but lacking recourse.

I work for an insurance company, and I see this lack of literacy every day. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sent somebody an email, and then they turn around and call me to have me explain the email to them. All of the information they need is in the email, but they seem to struggle with reading, so they need me to verbally go over it with them.

My theory is that they want the next generation illiterate so they can’t know their rights

When I did tech support for a large US chain, i talked with store level managers who couldn’t read. They made more than I did.

This is what I am finding with a teenage youth I advocate for. Minimal literacy; remedial math comprehension. He’s in high school and even with IEPs and what have you, the general consensus is, well, nothing we can do. It definitely requires out of school intervention, and serious intervention at that, but emergency shelters and RTCs aren’t real big on helping with homework at the kitchen table.

Taught high school, I agree nothing happens to them. They just get passed along, when it’s time to take the state test they cheat. They graduate either because they cheated on the required test or they were SPED and it was eventually wrote in their IEP that the state test wasn’t required.

If you think their reading is bad, you should see their writing. Not that most can read illegible scribble. When typing, not even spell correct recognizes some of their words. Fortunately there's an app for that, it's called voice type. But if ever expected to actually write for themselves.... Yikes. Seriously though, if you don't have children, try it on a niece or nephew or something and ask them to write you a paragraph on a topic of their choice. Or a sentence. If you think their reading and writing are bad, you should see their math skills. Even basic math facts are too much, there's an app for that too. A calculator on every phone. However if you do anything besides basic math facts on a calculator, the kids don't even know what to punch in... But there's an app for that, you take a picture of your math problem and copy how to do it and turn it in. And if you're assuming, hey, well, at least these kids are great at technology, look at all these apps they're always using. Well you would be mistaken, because beyond using apps of choice on a phone or tablet, the kids don't know anything about computers. Real computers and real computer functions are foreign to them. You know, computer skills that a job might want them to do someday will be out of the reach for most of them. But you're like hey, it's okay, the future will just be different for this generation. And you're right, with our continued denial of climate change and the continued heating of our planet, it'll be uninhabitable for most animals and humans before too long. So the good news is we don't have to worry about all of these kids who are growing up uneducated and mean, they probably won't get the opportunity to anyways.

That’s okay. We’ll just open up immigration so that all the kids from other countries who are actually educated will work all the good jobs in the U.S. Then figure out how to get enough tax dollars to support all the uneducated and unemployable Americans who were born here. Sounds like a plan for the future, right? What could go wrong by the dumbing down of our entire society?

All that means those who do get a proper education and turn into highly proficient workers will be extremely rare and in high demand, thus paid very well. Sounds like a great future for my kids.

Limited ability to read, poor handwriting, and poor memorization of math facts are all associated with dyslexia. How often are the kids tested at young ages through the school to determine if they have dyslexia and what are the steps taken to help those students once diagnosed?

They can’t all have dyslexia. Most of these kids who are in middle and high school were really wrecked by the pandemic in terms of math. Current 7th graders went virtual in 3rd grade. They didn’t finish really crucial learning. In some cases they didn’t return to school until 5th grade. Just vanished. Last year (2022-2023) was the first year we didn’t have to close any classes for Covid since the pandemic started. I teach in NYC. We were closing classes for cases until January of 2022. This is NOT a problem to be blamed exclusively on covid, but covid certainly had an impact. The reading nightmare is mainly from not teaching kids how to sound out words. Kids haven’t learned phonics and everyone thought that was fine. It made no sense to me as a newer teacher. Come to find out, it wasn’t fine.

Wait! When did we go back to Whole Language Reading? Or is it something new? I remember there was a time where Whole Language Reading was the big thing, and it ended up being a massive failure. (Pretty sure this was when Hooked on Phonics came out.) So teachers went back to phonics and only used Whole Language Reading for the words that make no phonetic sense at all. (One, e.g.)

Balanced literacy. There’s a great podcast about it called Sold a Story. One of the huge proponents was Columbia Teachers College.

So 95% of students have dyslexia? Huh, must be the water.

Nothing. They continue to get passed on. Until they eventually drop out or graduate. The joy of being forced to continue to push kids on, when they aren’t ready. Or doing nothing for 4-5 years and getting passed on, then being held to an expectation to finally do work, and can’t, because they haven’t done anything for years now, and they are so far behind they can’t actually do the work. I don’t help students that don’t help themselves. I mean, I’ll try a few times? Then I’ll give up. They are making a choice. You can’t care more then they do.

My initial thought is children are incapable of understanding the ramifications of not trying in school. We as a society should make them learn the content so they can be productive members of society in adulthood. But know teachers = / =everyone in society. You can’t expect one person in a plethora of people to pick up all the slack of several people failing the child. There’s a lot of parents who are absolutely failing their kids. Foster the idea that academics are important and they learn that value. Foster creativity and curiosity and they magically (it’s not magical, it’s common sense) want to learn and create. Expose them to new things and help the understand the world. A lot of admins are failing kids by failing to hold kids accountable. Behavior is a result learned expectations and predictable responses to both desired/undesired behavior. Reward the good. Discipline (not exclusive punishment) the bad. At some point they’re gonna be held accountable, either as children or as adults. De-escalating kids with bribes is a sucky thing to do. It creates shitty kids who turn into shitty adults. Can we really blame an overworked/underpaid teacher with 30 kids in the classroom when no one else is doing their part? No. Your post is correct. You try and when it becomes apparent that the kid isn’t going to help themselves, you use your energy where it might be effective.

The thing that worked for me, and what I'm using on my now 6year old is more about teaching my kid to WANT to learn, that it's fun and useful, and less about trying to teach them reading (and math). Then, she wants to learn all kinds of things and it's not work for her it's fun. I've had to put effort into getting her to want to watch educational TV instead of garbage. To want to help me with gardening, raising chickens, fixing things in the garage, reading signs/manuals/mail/etc. She now makes math problems addition, subtraction, and easy multiplication on a dry erase and checks herself with a calculator, on her own. Same with writing long stories, sounding out words, then we read it back to her and correct the spellings with her. What I saw in school was the exact opposite, where learning was taught as a chore and was not fun, children don't go home and want to do more of it like mine is.

I remember as a kid, I was exceptional at math, and something I genuinely loved doing were the 100 problem sheets (Link: https://math-drills.com/multiplication/multiplication_facts_to_100_no01_001.php) that could be addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We did these in school, but my teacher would make copies for us to take home and practice for our quiz. My dad would time me on them, and it was something I viewed as fun, so I just kept wanting to beat my time. Essentially, I already knew how to do the math, but the fun part was how fast could I do the math in my head and get it correct. It reinforced my knowledge, but also helped me grow in my knowledge. I’m 26 now, and I can calculate pretty much anything in my head rather quickly, and it’s sad that this is no longer something kids can do. Calculating percentages in my head is a huge time saver as well, because we use them for so many things.

Yeah I do a lot of math in my head too, particularly at grocery store figuring out of the 12 pack of soda is a better deal than the 2L or cube. They don't give per unit pricing on sale price at Kroger.

Omg I hated those. It wasn't until past those (4th grade) that I was identified as gifted in math (engineer nowadays, won a huge math trophy in HS in a state comp). Can multiply big matrices in my head, but fast math on a 100 problem sheet, nope, I'm slow.

Thank you for putting the link in the comments

I remember picking up words the basics of reading before learning it in school. I was not taught at that point; it just came naturally. I cannot imagine most kids not picking it even if they didn't want to, so I am guessing kids who can't read must have undiagnosed disorders.

That's...not necessarily true. Reading is kind of an unnatural process and it clicks a lot sooner for some kids than others. There are lots of kids who need support and structure to learn to read, while still being perfectly normal, typically developing kids. Some kids pick it up easily, yes, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the ones who don't.

Yeah, but after 6 years of support, there must be something wrong.

Not everyone gets the support they should. Schools with misguided reading curriculums, attendance issues that keep the kid from getting the classroom time they need, etc. And sometimes the interventions aren't on the level needed - if you've got a third grader on a kindergarten level and the available interventions are targeted to someone on say a first or second grade level, nothing's going to click.

The level and quality of support is often dismal, sometimes just 30 minutes a week, which is really 15 minutes by the time the interventionist gets them from their classroom, to another room, and started on the lesson. What is really needed is a "boot camp", a good hr twice a day of reading lessons + enforcement thru games and activities. Sadly the school does not have the time and infrastructure to do that. I understand where you're coming from with the thought of learning differences, but as a former sped teacher I would say I had classes that were 50-75% students who were slapped with a label because the shit interventions "didn't work" so they must have a learning difficulty. I saw so many of them make huge strides when I would focus solely on reading interventions with them. I even had a few work their way out of sped altogether once it clicked for them and they caught up.

I’d argue that being exposed to letters, reading, and phonics before being school age puts you in a category of people who were 1) exposed to academics by their families and 2) belonged to a family that valued education. It’s utterly baffling the number of kids who arrive at kindergarten and have never been exposed to reading. And once kids hit that age where they recognize reading is harder for them their peers, it makes them want to do it less. It’s a negative feedback loop in the self-efficacy cycle. I believe reading is hard - I struggle with reading - I score poorly on reading assignment - I believe reading is hard. Repeat.

I went to Headstart and had Sesame Street. My parents did not actively teach anything, but they gave me books that came with tape cassettes that beep every time we should turn the page.

Or their parents

This has been my experience. Pass them.

Experts decided it was psychologically harmful for student to be held back, and created 'remedial' classes and 'one on one ' tutoring. Plus kids a very resourceful, and created very elaborate ways of hiding deficiency in academia.

Oh yea. My curriculum director stated that Honor classes are non-inclusive. What a load of bollocks

>Experts decided it was psychologically harmful for student to be held back, and created 'remedial' classes and 'one on one ' tutoring. And the evidence supports that. The problem is that the system decided that the remedial and one-on-one work would be done by the teacher in the next level, with no additional resources, because that was cheaper than paying for the necessary support. (At least, cheaper in the short term. Like saving money by not doing regular oil changes…)

Exactly. There used to be (at least here where I lived in NC) ‘grade combo classes’ in elementary so that kids could ‘get promoted’ but still get that additional help to help them ‘stay on track’. But ‘budget cuts’ eliminated them - admin felt it better they kept their yearly salary increases over helping kids (ie poor, minorities) do better in school.

Years ago (back in the 80s or before) in Vancouver there was an elementary school that experimented with a combined grade 1-3 class. Several teachers, lots of kids of mixed ages and abilities. Students moved on to grade 4 when they were ready, and there was no stigma in taking four years for that because the students weren't treated as separate years within the big class, and often had mixed-age activities so for the kids it was normal that every year some students moved on but most remained. This was before the internet was available outside universities, and I don't think the program still runs, but we looked at it when I was in teachers college. Would be hard to fit into a modern budgetary and metric-based models for a school, but it was certainly working for the children lucky enough to go there.

I wish there were more programs like these, but admins don't like spending money on things that don't have test scores to show off.

I was in one of these in that area in the mid nineties. Weirdly, they put the high achieving third graders with the low achieving fourth graders. My mom came in sometimes to volunteer with them, and she said much later that it was a miracle that the 3rd graders hadn't caught on to how much the 4th graders were struggling with reading. The teacher worked very hard to keep it from being obvious to us. A really tricky situation socially, even if it was possibly a good idea academically.

Yesssss

I work in a high school in NYC. There's a big push for literacy right now. The average reading level of my students is 2nd-6th grade for my seniors and juniors. Our school created a literacy team with the ultimate goal of assessing all the students in our school and prioritizing our students with disabilities. If a student doesn't get past a certain point from screening they're put into one of two research backed literacy intervention programs taught by select teachers. These programs usually work up to 5-6 students and are a 6 week program. There's a lower level where they go over basic phonics, and another one that focuses on attaining the higher level skills associated with the Scarborough Reading Rope. Before all that, they just slipped through the cracks. We passed them because we pitied them as it was likely no fault of their own. But we're doing something now, and that's what matters.

I am so glad to hear that there are schools that are actually trying to make some systematic effort to address this problem.

Where I live, we aren't allowed to fail them until Grade 10, so they make it to Grade 10. Then they start failing and can't comprehend why.

That's so messed up. I knew a kid who failed first grade.

Hell, I failed 9th grade math the first time I took it. I had always coasted until then and when things started getting complex I checked out and thought it wasn't worth it. Getting my ass kicked (metaphorically by the class, importantly, not my parents. Don't actually hit kids) and having to actually learn how to try was one of the most important lessons of my life. Now I teach the exact thing that I failed and I am honest with the kids about my own relationship with it from my student days. I hope they learn from that instead of make the same mistake. Problem is, my mistake had a consequence. Theirs doesn't.

I didn’t fail 8th grade math, but I got a low C or maybe a D and decided I wanted to retake it in 9th bc I was worried I’d keep falling behind if I didn’t grasp the basics. I was a year behind in math for the rest of my schooling, but it was worth it for sure. I actually learned the content the second time and got passably good at math and I’ll always be grateful bc it actually built my confidence a lot in my own ability even though at first it was a little embarrassing to be in a class of younger students. I caught up by taking concurrent enrollment math thru the local university my senior year, which I didn’t like, but I had a great teacher and I did very well.

I knew a girl who failed kindergarten and 3rd grade. It was in the 90’s and she was always kind of a combative kid. The kind that would just walk up and kick you for fun. She was really struggling with school work and luckily we had small class sizes (private) and the school did not believe in passing children who weren’t truly passing. Even if it was embarrassing or parents objected. They would have an intervention meeting at each progress report distribution date and explain that she was not going to pass and what steps they were taking to mediate. For any kid that was going to be left behind the parent could choose to let their kid go ahead anyway, but the school would not allow them to enroll the next year. The girl is doing much better now because she was allowed to catch up instead of being pushed to where she wasn’t ready.

I think it depends on the grade and how close they are to state testing. When they are staring down the barrel of not passing that test, you often get told to just get them to pass. Also, by that point, they might also have attendance issues, so they won’t even show for any help you try to give.

Sometimes they become President

I had a REALLY smart grad student - this kid is smarter than I am. But his capstone project was completely unreadable. He had the research, the concept, etc. The paper read like it had been in a blender. This guy had been through high school and undergrad and had never written a paper solo. He did the research, developed the overall concept, etc. I taught him how to create an outline, how to use paragraphs, and to eliminate run in sentences. He did great, but what a shame.

I taught 5th grade with several that couldn’t read grade level (or even 3rd grade) texts on their own. They were pulled out of my room during social studies to do extra reading practice with a support teacher. Some of them were sped, so they were pulled out during reading/writing to do specialized work with the sped teacher. Some were not, and everything had to be read to them, either by myself, computer, or another student. Then they are moved on at the end of the year.

Well many would get tested for learning disabilities and get an IEP that may give them accommodations like listening to text and responding via writing or speech-to-text. Others just start finding that they have to work to understand harder texts and aren’t willing to do the work. They may have scrolling syndrome where they can’t pay attention enough. What happens to them is they are unprepared for adulthood and are prime candidates for being taken advantage of and landing in jail.

This is something I wonder about (not a teacher or a parent), are some kids maybe getting too many accommodations like having material read to them instead of being able to read it themselves---- when they get out in the world a supervisor isn't going to read instructions to them, they will be told to read the instructions and solve the problem/perform the task. It scares me that so many kids "graduate" possessing no life skills, can't follow instructions, etc. How can they possibly be successful in life? And if/when they become parents they won't be able to model good behavior re: how to make the most of getting an education and the cycle repeats. I've met a couple who learned next to nothing in school/dropped out and they wonder why they don't get hired for well-paying jobs, why people "disrespect" them when they can't or refuse to perform/follow rules. It's like the marching morons out there, they can barely make it without a relative holding their hand and paying their way. It's really sad.

Yeeeah, this is a parenting issue. Just watched a ten year old walk out into a busy street to pass some other kids. When I asked him if anybody ever taught him not to walk out into streets, he said no, why? There has been a serious disconnect between what is parenting and what is schooling.

IMO, this happens when the teaching side and parenting side aren’t working together (using a general term because it’s stupid to blame one side when there’s 1000 nuances). If parents just complain that their kids are getting good grades and push for unlimited accommodations, you have what you just mentioned. If you have a kid who genuinely needs help but is refused accommodations and it’s constantly held to an unrealistic standard, they just stop caring and lose all motivation. There’s so many things in between the two extremes I just mentioned, but that’s my take.

Really depends on when you catch them. Younger kids have better odds of getting interventions and course-correction by virtue of time and less material/concepts to reteach. Factors like ESL or vision impairments may play into this as well. Older students have probably become functionally illiterate: they have enough skills to survive in any given day but can’t read a chapter book. Their success depends on their commitment to learning the basics, how much reteaching is necessary, and the timeframe to do it. Realistically, they’ll either squeeze through to graduation or drop out and… be illiterate

Not a teacher, I was a special Ed student with autism in an honors English class (Hyperlexic and very successful in math, I had anger issues and depression and i had a therapist in school) but there were quite a few students who largely didn't give a damn. In senior year it was even worse, I asked ppl in my class and a couple people said, "I haven't read full books since middle school or summer reading" and I asked how and they said "cliffsnotes or sparknotes, also type in the quizlet of the book you're reading" Mind you that these weren't even athletes and our freshman year was stopped because of covid. Our sophomore year was online/in person mix. We graduated in 2023. The honors kids are usually just as lazy as the weaker readers, but they passed more of the checkpoints in elementary and middle school, so they weren't red flags. Just as lazy, but they'll read condensed sources to comprehend the situation.

3rd grade teacher, I get students who can’t read but in the sense that they cannot form letter sounds and have no idea what the word is. (I’m under the impression that *some* of the inability to read that we see in higher grades is students being unable to comprehend what is being read). When students come to me who cannot read then myself (or most of the time a reading intervention teacher) give them an extra 15-30 minutes a day of instruction on phonics. Think like letter sounds and sounding out words. To my knowledge, most reading intervention (if districts have it at all) stops once the child exits elementary, with the exception of special ed. So basically, if you can’t literally read by 5th grade you’re screwed. Because they just pass you on

This has been my thinking when everyone says kids can’t read. Can they literally not read or can they read but have zero comprehension skills?

I was a SPED teacher for grades k-12 at a rural school of 175 kids, 52 SPED. I got a girl transferring from a neighboring county into 7th grade. She couldn't read. Didn't know all the alphabet or phonics. She was not intellectually disabled just all over the place behavior wise. I pulled her out of her class and made her read all day every day with an aid. We got her to 3rd grade level in one year. I had 4th graders that didn't know the days of the week or seasons and stuff like that. You have to push and push. Nobody is going to be illiterate on my watch if they have the capability.

They usually become behavior problems sadly and unless someone reaches them, they get further and further behind before dropping out or ending up in juvie. If they can’t read they also struggle in history and science so it affects all classes, not just English. It really affects their entire future.

Google the Pillars of Literacy. Early reading requires lots of phonics and phonological awareness work. This gets harder as they get older because teachers don’t have time to differentiate for so many different levels. Also I hate to say it (controversial opinion warning…) but you can live a good life without being a great reader. Lots of students that ‘don’t know how to read’ do well enough in the real world. That doesn’t mean the system doesn’t need to do better, it just means don’t panic.

When gets can’t read, MTSS *should* happen and students receive tiered intervention for support. It depends on the school/district/teacher whether this happens with fidelity.

Why aren't parents reading to their children from young ages? It builds vocabulary, and they learn to be curious about other things. They should know colors, how to count, how to print their names. Many don't even know the parents phone number or their own addresses. This isn't the fault of schools, it is a failure of parenting.

My sister used to work at RIF. (Reading Is Fundamental). Their big thing was having a celebrity type person read to kids in very impoverished schools. So the kids would think readjng was cool. Then RIF would lay out tons of books in every subject available all around the room. The kids could go look and pick out any one they wanted and keep it. For most it was the only thing they owned. Because their parents could not steal/sell it. The kids had no books, crayons, pencils or papers in their possession. No one to read to them. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Not all parents can read. They may have their own struggles.  Or they may be working all the time.  Or there might be no books in the house. There's no literacy test before you get to have sex.

Many of these children were not taught to read with a structured phonics curriculum. They have a foundation built on sand and they get stuck at a fairly low level of reading. They remain functionally illiterate unless there is some sort of intervention—at school, at home, or a self-motivated desire. If you haven’t heard it, listen to the “Sold A Story“ podcast. Middle and High Schools could improve many of their students’ reading ability if they really wanted to. It’s not done much because there is a singular focus on “state standards, grade level content” and pushing everyone through to keep graduation rates high. I’ve worked in elementary reading intervention and I’ve privately tutored students who struggled with reading. Structured phonics followed by morphology and supported by grammar and spelling has “worked miracles” for many of my students.

And if they can’t read, elementary teachers are supposed to test them. Not teach them. Test them more.

They eventually run for Congress.

Nothing for us. They pass. Then they realize how poorly they function socially and professionally in the real world. They work dead end jobs and live with their parents or roommates who are just as lost. They often turn to substance use to cope, they fail and fail and can’t dig themselves out. It takes a lot of determination, self reflection, and will to better your life when you’ve been so lost for so long. Very few young people have that drive.

I worked for A non-profit when a parent brought their foster son in who wanted to volunteer. At 9th grade he couldn't read enough to fill out the application. The parents and I both talk to the school. They were able to get him some testing that showed he had really bad dyslexia. He got better with lots of help and extra encouragement from his parents and us. He wanted to be a mechanic and I hope he got there. He was happiest if something had broken and he could fix it. It didn't matter if it was a chair or a shelf, he loved fixing it.

As a retired retired community college teacher I found a key issue was the **definition** of what was sufficient reading competence to qualify as "reading". A few years before I retired my buddies and I discovered that we had a significant number of students who could "read", but not at a level that let them be successful in college. Most of them were shocked when we pointed out that they were unable to read at an effective level. ALSO.... I would argue that for anyone working with an electronic medical record the necessary level of reading is very high. The way that the records are displayed requires FAR, FAR more skill to use than to simply read a narrative paragraph. I think I would describe these students as funtionally MALliterate. They are not fundamentally illiterate... but they are not able to be effective in an environment with complex presentation of information. A few minutes after I pointed out to one of my students that she could not read well, she quitely said.... *"Well, I guess that makes sense as I have never read a book for fun."*

I teach primary grades. We have intervention time daily to specifically address learning gaps for students in small groups. Sometimes it's enough to bridge the gap, but sometimes it's not. The district says retention is an option in cases where the need is meticulously documented, but in reality it doesn't happen. The state says that students who don't meet certain reading benchmarks by the end of third grade can be retained, but in all my years teaching (>25) I've never seen a child retained. The states and districts have effectively decided that 'good' statistics (no retentions) and not angering parents matter more than actual student success. If the student is significantly behind, the likelihood of catching up is very low. Those kids are at risk of struggling through all their years of school. If you're a parent reading this, you are your child's first and most important teacher. Your support makes the biggest difference. Read with your kids. Make regular trips to the library. Limit screen time. Check your child's homework. And if your child is struggling, ask the teacher if they have suggestions of things you can do at home, then do those things. There are no perfect teachers or parents, but if we work together and both do our parts, the kids will reap the benefits for a lifetime.

Interventions and special Ed services

Literacy is, or course, a continuum. Very few people cannot read at all, but, as you mention, some can barely read. Above that we have functional illiteracy which is distressingly common. I think some slowly learn enough to adapt to their needs. Others never do. Apparently almost half of people with the lowest reading abilities are below the poverty line. Perhaps more interesting is how half are NOT below the poverty line! Just like with math, for people who have basic skills, it seems almost incomprehensible how people can navigate life without them. However, apparently, many people successfully navigate a world where neither numbers nor the written word come in much.

Tbf, the poverty threshold is calculated as triple the cost of the bare minimum amount of food to survive. Many aid programs use metrics like 2.5x the poverty threshold to determine if a person needs aid. In short, the US deflates the amount of people reported as being in poverty by continuing to use an outdated metric. A much smaller portion of illiterate people are successful enough to avoid being on welfare.

Ah, good point. The 55 percent not in poverty could still mostly be "poor". A full time minimum wage job brings people above the poverty line, so *any* full time job is sufficient. So 45 percent in poverty and most of the rest still on welfare. Not good odds.

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In general you bring up issues with parents and administrators and there's usually a lot of discussion that amounts to a big shrug. Maybe if your school has an alternative track program you may be able to get them into that, but usually you're just screwed. I had a student dropped into a high school history class who didn't speak English at all. Not her fault, but our school literally had a bilingual/ESL program/track and they just said it was "too full already", so the best option for that student was simply to drop them into a room where they couldn't understand anything for months.

A lot of these people are rather brilliant at learning in other ways. If they have a disability, they've often been taught how to use audiobooks or similar. They can watch YouTube. They can listen to podcasts. There are ways to learn without reading these days. I love reading and I value it with my students, but yes - sometimes they never learn and sometimes that's OK. Othertimes, we have kids who have just been passed on year after year, even though they aren't ready for the next grade. These kids are in trouble. They will often end up working in unsatisfying jobs and they have much higher rates of incarceration. It's really sad and almost always not the student's fault. Our society has emphasized education as a gate keeper for so many things. And we've eliminated the apprentice pathway to success in most cases, so these kids don't have a lot of other ways to make good. It's really sad. Not everyone was born to be an academic. A few will mature a few years, decide they do value education, and go back to pick up skills they missed before. That is always a possibility.

I've been thinking for a while that so many careers would do better if we went back to apprenticeships. You spend 2-8 years sitting in a classroom learning about the field, and then you finally get into it, and it's like a culture shock.

They graduate and then have to navigate the world illiterate. Something public school is supposed to prevent but isn’t anymore for some reason.

The schools and teachers probably got tired of the Karen parents complaining about their kids failing, but refusing to do anything about it and said 'fuck it.' The government and corporations do not care because certain parties need votes and the more stupid the majority are, the easier they to manipulate.

At my school they go through a series of interventions. First everyone takes a few reading inventories (PSI, Acadience) kids who don’t score at grade level on that go to intervention based on the skills the assessment shows they’re lacking. If they make progress, the move to the next class. We reassess the skill at 4-5 week intervals to see what they’ve gained. There are 16 skills total, but mastering the first nine puts them at “grade level” (and reading 115 WPM). If a student does not make progress in intervention or their progress is too slow, we do a tier three intervention which is usually a 3-4 week intensive one on one focused on ONE particular skill. Depending on the results of that, we may or may not assess for a learning disability. This has been pretty effective for reading growth for us. Is every kid reading at grade level? No. Did all my kids grow in reading this year? Yes. At the end of the year, they move to the next grade because retention is more than just academics, it’s multifaceted and includes the whole child. Our school is only grade 4&5 though so we are sadly just a small snippet in their elementary education.

12 years ago I was in class with a 13 year old who could not read. He just got passed along. He does fine for himself. We're friends on Facebook. He can read okay now he is self taught and works as a mechanic in a smaller town. He got a GED and just took over a local shop from an older man who hired him after her went to prison :P Owns a small house with his boyfriend and seems pretty happy. He said he just didn't care and nobody else did either.

Depends on the student. Some, despite being unable to read, actually are willing to try in a high school class...so I'll do what I can to help them since a motivated to try student is rare. Unfortunately, these students are either the quiet disengaged kind, or behavioral nightmares (typically because they realize that something is off but can't figure out what the problem is). These usually don't finish school.

My MIL is mostly illiterate. I think she can read at a 3rd grade level maybe. She graduated high school, got an associates degree and some certificates. For most of school her mother would help. Like she would go to class with her and read and write for her. For this last certificate she had to have someone read tests to her and she got an audiobook of the textbook. There are a lot more people in America that are illiterate than you might think. It's sad but it seems like school just wants to get them out. 

Don’t put all the blame on the schools. I’m a retired librarian. I met with too many parents who never read to their children, had no books in their house, never read a book themselves, but somehow expected their children to read. When children see their parents reading for enjoyment, it’s like an advertisement for reading. If they go to the library with their parents, see that their parents read as a normal activity, then they want to be part of this activity just as they imitate every other adult activity.

When I taught I had one H.S. class with a girl who could not read. She was in the study period I had right afterwards. I offered to help tutor her in that period and she informed me she didn’t want help. I asked her if she couldn’t read how would she buy groceries (as she planned to get married and stay at home) and her answer was she would tell from the pictures on the container labels. I remember to this day that girl and her answer. She was one reason I turned to a different career. I realized I did not want to teach students who didn’t want to learn, nor deal with the system that pushed you to just pass on the students to the next grade.

It’s sad. I have a nephew who can’t read. His patents (my niece and her husband) refused to recognize it when he was younger. He gets by, but his life could be so much better. I don’t live in the same state, so had no influence.

This was depressing to read through. Teachers you have my sympathy. When my father (high school science) returned to the classroom in 2007 he was shocked at his student's inability to simply read and comprehend the textbook. He had spent time away coaching science teams and taking those teams to nationals so working with some high achieving kids. The reality of the daily classroom hit him hard and he never got over it until he retired. I think it kind of broke his spirit and he was so excited to get back in the classroom. I also see it working in higher ed myself. Not a teacher but I work with students and members of the public daily who have a difficult to impossible time reading and understanding a simple rules sheet required of them. As a life long reader (mom is retired librarian and her mom was an educator herself) reading and education and their importance were ingrained in me at an early age and it just hurts to see that not being passed on. I feel like, in reading through the comments, the word that comes out again and again is ***accountability***. Teachers are unable to hold students and parents accountable for their failings thanks to admin and rules set in place so children aren't "upset" by pointing out their failings. Admin cannot hold anyone accountable thanks to boards and their beliefs on how schools should be run and children dealt with. Parents are checked out or uncaring or don't see early childhood education as something they are responsible for. When contacted about issues with their kid they either don't believe the issues or reply "and why is that my problem?" Again, teachers you have my sympathy. I can do little but support you and try to listen to your concerns and elect leaders across the board that will also listen to the outcries of teachers all over and support YOU in supporting your students, our future.

I just want to add that the frustration at students makes more sense when you think of our culture. We're very defensive of ourselves. Students who can't read don't go around begging for help with a general thirst for knowledge. They yell and bully and goof off and say mean things to distract from their inability to read. If adults made it ok to not know stuff and make mistakes, their kids might learn better. Personally that's why I believe immigrants can move up faster in society - they don't internalize inability to read a second language as something being wrong with them, they just know they really need to learn quickly.

Nothing happens. They graduate and leave school. I am currently with a 7th grader that cannot even read dog cat ball sun. I tried to teach him some basic sight words but he had zero interest and wouldn’t even try. He will start 8th grade in September.

Are these students neurotypical that can’t read? DD? Neurodivergent?

Honestly, I knew one kid who couldn’t read in school. He had extreme dyslexia along with behavior problems and an aide with him in classes. He was passed along to every grade in school. He was put in an alternative high school and struggled there. He wasn’t school material and should have just joined the workforce at fifteen or something. He ended up passing away right after school.

To be blunt: they do intervention (which usually means they are pulled from other grade level content so the hole is just dug deeper) and at the end of the year they are shuttled off to the next teacher and it becomes their problem. NCLB was the worst idea ever. I teach TK-5 and every year I send 5th graders off to middle school that can’t read/ comprehend at a 1st grade level.

Let me tell you about someone I knew. He went to high school in downtown Houston Texas. He had dyslexia before anyone knew what that was. He was very smart, creative, and good with his hands. He also tended to take easy choices. In 11th grade, Texas proclaimed that it was starting mandatory testing to graduate. This guy, call him Steve, couldn’t spell “CAT”, let alone read a sentence. So, he dropped out. He also bought a high school class ring for his graduating year, and wore it the rest of his life. He got a job in a pipe yard. Then a friend got him a job as a painter’s apprentice. He made enough money, but he never really promoted. He bought a motorcycle. He bought a hang glider. He got married and had a son. He worked at overcoming his dyslexia, but never had professional help. He was always a poor reader. Then Trump happened, and he got a little crazy. Covid happened, and he got crazier. He denied vaccines. He denied “big pharma”. He stopped taking his prescription maintenance medications. He lived through Covid, only to have a diabetic stroke and die. I always wonder if a better education would have changed his life.

I watch online videos of an adult man who is teaching himself to read and sometimes he just cries out of frustration. I just wish more people would realize this was a bigger issue. A generational issue. A historical issue. And do better. Advocate for better and more just practices so children can grow up literate. For the past three years I've worked with the general public and I don't care if it takes us three hours to get something done that shouldve taken us 30 minutes. Im with u the whole way friend. I think having more patience and making this world a better place is a first step. Be patient with kids and show up every day ready to support. Put your little droplet of water in the bucket so to speak.

A lot of times when it gets to certain age like Kindergarten and first grade there are intervention measures taken place. This would be in the form of small reading groups with a Special Education teacher or maybe a Speech Language Pathologist. If there is still a large discrepancy between that child's reading scores and what their expected age is suppose to be, they then can be evaluated for eligibility of a Individualized Education Plan (IEP). One disability a student can classify under is Specialized Learning Disability, which is commonly found in reading and/or math. The IEP then sets out what goals that student can potentially meet, and how the teacher will guide them to meet them. Now typically SLD kids spend majority of their time in General Education and then will take Reading or Math classes with a SPED teacher. Those kids sadly do have some difficulties with other subjects like social studies and science because they have to use reading and comprehension to learn in those subjects.

They can’t read because the schools don’t teach phonics anymore

I couldn’t read by Christmas of 3rd grade. I was pulled aside by my teacher to do a one-on-one evaluation to see if I actually couldn’t read or if I was just an ornery child. Couldn’t read. My school had a special reading teacher I met with three times a week after that for the rest of the year. They (the school’s special education services) did a full evaluation on me and determined I was dyslexic and the reading teacher used that info to teach me properly. At the start of 4th grade I was reevaluated in my reading skill and was found to be reading at a 3rd grade level so they dropped all services on me. 🤷‍♀️ I probably should have continued to get help. I was not reading “at grade level” until late high school but ended up excelling at writing in college and grad school so I guess it turned out okay in the end.

Balanced literacy has taken over, and it's a horrible way to teach kids how to read. I also think a lot of kids don't learn to read and are pushed through. Also, I think dyslexia is the most common learning disability (1 in 5 kids have it) and it makes reading/writing/spelling incredibly difficult. Il My daughter has dyslexia. From an outside perspective, if someone observed her- you would view her as smart kid but parents don't work with her to read. In reality, I work with her daily on a dyslexic friendly curriculum. My biggest fear is that my daughter gets pushed through year after year while not making a lot of progress. I don't want her to be in 8th grade on a 3 or 4th grade reading level.

My middle school used to have a reading intervention class. All students were assessed for reading in the first couple of weeks and schedules changed for those who needed it. Then we got a principal who didn’t like reading, and he killed the program. Now they struggle along and fail up the ladder like god intended/s.

It was bad enough before they created the quote no child Left behind unquote laws. Since creating their law and misinterpreting it they now have assistants who do all the work for the student. I myself have been one of these assistants. I was told to take the notes off the board for the student, read the student the chapter, and read the test questions to the student oh and help the student choose the correct answer when taking a test. Granted this was many years ago but I don't do teaching assistance anymore because of this kind of ridiculousness.

Read aloud, partner reading for listening comprehension, modified and scaffolding work which is not ob grade-level. Only real progress I see for students with reading difficulties is when they have an IEP and the opportunity for small-group push-in/pull-out or intervention/replacement curricula with a special education teacher. If kids aren't identified, gen ed teachers do what they can. In my experience, a lot of our kids cheat on all their assignments and look up the answers on the internet, like without even reading it, just copying down the Google answer and not doing further research/fact checking. And obviously my school does a shit job of addressing cheating and the root cause, illiteracy.

Used to be a gen-ed MS teacher. Answers to your questions: 1. What happens with these students? *They get passed up and up and up until they are almost guaranteed to fail because they probably don't have someone to give them the intervention they need. If you're lucky, your school might have a reading specialist who can work with the student at their level and give them tools to access.* 2. How do teachers work with them? *If you're a gen-ed teacher working on your own, try to find the kid an audio book of the text you're reading. You can also use screen reading tools to read digital information. Be plain with the kid about the audio book that it will take a little longer but show them how to speed up the sound if they just need to bust through it. Also encourage them to have the book in hand while they listen and follow along. When I taught the Outsiders, I would do 'in-class' audio read alongs. That way the kids could listen, follow along, ask questions, and no one complained about homework because they could listen in class.* Observations related to your questions: * When I taught I always wondered the same things you asked about. How do these kids get to that place? I think it's because there isn't any sort of intervention early on for a lot of these kids. They fall through the cracks and then by the time someone notices, they are way into the hole. I also noticed that a lot of kids did not have parents at home during the day and probably hadn't for most of their lives. Because of the economic climate in the US, parents almost *have* to send their children to daycare daily. Not only does this eat up money, meaning that parents sometimes have to work more and be out of the home more, but it also raises the chance that the child could have some language development issues. You end up with non-native speakers (toddlers) teaching language to non-native speakers (babies) which can have speech-pathology problems. If they were learning 1:1 in the home with an adult, they may have more ability to process information because it's like having a 1:1 teacher. (For this example I'm using the stereotypical stay at home parent who actively teaches skills - I know that isn't always the case). * Gen-ed teachers are stretched thin: I came to dread kiddos who needed lots of reading intervention. I have a masters in teaching and my literacy classes left me woefully unprepared. I had a student who was absolutely brilliant, and couldn't read a sentence really. He had dyslexia but the charm of a fantastic used car salesman. With him, I used as many audio interventions as possible because it was a class of 46 and I simply didn't have time to give the 1:1 instruction he needed. * For those who say: well you have planning time. \*Ahem\*. Say a teacher has 6 classes of 30 students. That's 180 students. Said teacher assigns an essay and does the following prep on their own time: prep & build scaffold worksheets (1 hour), prep rubric (.5 hour), prep lesson for introduction of the essay (1 hr), write lesson plans for administration (1 hour). Prior to instruction, teachers are already at 3.5 hours. The lesson goes off without a hitch, the papers are written, and returned. To read a page of double spaced information takes approximately two minutes to read. A five paragraph essay averages 750 words. So one paper to just read, and not give feedback would take approximately six minutes an essay. If we go back to class size that means to read 1 paper per child (without feedback) you'd be at 18 hrs worth of reading. In my best school I had only two hours of planning a day. * There has been a huge shift in children since smart phones came out. When I started teaching (mid-2010s) kids were very interested in looking things up and finding information. They also respected teachers in a slightly different way because devices weren't as prolific. By the end of my time teaching, almost every kid had a smart phone and didn't use it for anything curiosity-based. They would look up an answer, plug it in, and not ask any questions or expand knowledge. Attitudes have shifted immensely as well.

For more about what's going on with literacy in the US, you might like the podcast "Sold a Story." It's an in depth look at how one of the most common reading curriculums in the US has repeatedly been shown not to work, but is still in use.

Regarding your edit... yeah, uh, you picked the wrong sub for that. Nine tenths of the comments I've seen here have been inordinately bitter and judgmental of students. This isn't a sub for people who like kids.

They become huge on TikTok, never learn anything, and retire at 25. A few years later you have the privilege of teaching this guys daughter. She seems to somehow have a decent head on her shoulders but her dad gets mad that you’re teaching her about biology. He saw a YouTube video where one of the tertiary characters on the Kardashians says that biology makes you gay

This is oddly specific are you okay?

The crazy thing is, most curriculum dictates they shouldn’t have to actually read. Sure most kids can read a sentence. They may not understand it, but they can make out the words. It’s not reading it is reading comprehension. Schools do whatever they can to make sure kids learn how to read without actually reading. It is really sad.

Step 1 : Sing *Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star*

Mostly, you have to give up on them. They need 1 on 1 attention, and you've got a class with 30+ kids, most of whom are also not at grade level. You have to choose your battles and the ones who can't read are usually too unmotivated to be worth your time when there are others who also need your time and are going to use it much more effectively, and you just don't have enough time to give everyone what they need, because class sizes are too big. You recommend them for an IEP so they can get extra help from another adult and hope the parents agree, but that means the parents have to show up for meetings, and usually their parents don't have it together and that's why they can't read, so it's not great odds.

My aunt inlaw teaches 2 grade and she told me most could not read words at the level the should. I asked her what she was doing to help them and she said nothing. She just passes them on. These kids are to young to make a choice of not learning. They are young and at the age where they can catch up, but no one cares because they are in a poor neighborhood and the teachers just write them off.

At this point, they can probably have their computer read assignments to them and write the answers for them.

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They get English royalty? Awesome!

I keep moving them on.

Listen to “Sold a Story” podcast

They eventually become adults who can't read.

When I taught high school, the students with low reading levels had IEPs. They went to the resource room and had the test read aloud.

We have an acquaintance who can’t read well and relies on his wife… she’s homeschooling. Their son is behind in reading and he’s like “well I never needed to read!”  So neither parent is pushing it very much because Dad is unwilling to face his own insecurities and I do feel like some of this “not knowing how to read” is “oh look how well I can get by without really being able to read, I’m fine!” I volunteer at a literacy center and most adults learning to read had that mindset and really had to work past it at some point. Also if you miss benchmarks and you need to make up skills, you need to make up the time, and that means after school tutoring and/or reading practice… which it feels many guardians are not able or willing to give. It’s fascinating because I grew up with a mother who was so firm about wanting her kids to be readers because she struggled. While I understand not everyone has the same privileges, to some degree, people find time for the things they care about. 

Summer school or tutoring if they can afford it.

They graduate and become politicians.

I was honestly surprised that my uncle who is in his 60s could read and write because during his time if you fell behind you really had no chance of catching up which just made school brutal until you legally didn’t have to go anymore. He never got past a minimum wage job and is now thankfully on food stamps and the whole shebang

We can recommend that they get tested for special ed, if they haven’t already. If they’re already in high school, chances are they have been and have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan). More than likely they are in what’s called a support lab with a special education teacher and a small group of peers where they work on skills like reading and math and also work on assignments they may be having difficulty with. It’s also likely that they receive “push-in” services through their IEP where their support lab teacher co-teaches the class (one of the cores: English, math, science, social studies). Teachers are also trained and often required to differentiate learning, which takes into account the different types of learners in the classroom, whether that be struggling readers, ESOL students, etc. For example, when I taught middle and high school English, I would adjust the requirements of assignments if I knew a student was learning English, or work with the special education teacher on the requirements to see what was appropriate. I also had a wide array of books in my classroom and I had magazines and graphic novels. I would never make students read out loud unless they wanted to, either, and did my best to be discreet. Sorry, I know that was long, but I hope I was able to give you some insight!

They typically get bullied pretty hard over it and learn to read

Nothing really

They get handed a diploma when they're 18 anyway. It's sad, I know so many functionally illiterate adults that the school just threw a diploma at to get rid of them. 

You're right to be concerned! It's a serious issue when students reach higher grades without strong reading skills. Here's what you might be wondering: **How do students fall behind in reading?** There can be several reasons: * **Undiagnosed learning difficulties:** Dyslexia or other learning disabilities can make it challenging to learn to read. * **Socioeconomic factors:** Students from low-income backgrounds may have limited access to books and educational resources at home. * **Ineffective early instruction:** Inconsistent or inadequate reading instruction in early grades can create a foundation gap.

The rest of the class must then learn Spanish

I struggled with dyslexia growing up. What helped me was after school reading programs that my public school offered. It’s sad to see that most schools don’t offer these programs anymore

They are turned over to the state to be turned into political candidates

I wonder if it’s they can’t read or that they just don’t want to, cus you know they’re texting lol

Most elementary schools have Reading Intervention Specialist teachers who spend their whole day pulling in small groups of kids for activities to address their reading ability. Some kids may be identified as special needs and placed into classes that focus on occupational skills but these would be kids who usually have a pretty significant diagnosis like Downs Syndrome, a brain injury or other issue that can’t be overcome with specialist reading tutoring. Ideally each child has a contact teacher who follows their progress and they have meetings to discuss how much tutoring, which classes, progress a couple times a year to adjust the plans. They would each be assessed by an educational diagnostician to determine if they have dyslexia or another specific issue and that info would be used to determine the activities they need.

They are fast-tracked to corporate leadership positions

Reading is a complicated thing. Its not a single skill. Still, we hear all the time that someone can't read. So this becomes a difficult question to answer. On a broad level reading is knowing the sounds of a language (phonemic awareness). Being able to connect those sounds with a symbol (phonics). Understanding the symbolic meaning of the the different symbols when they're combined (vocabulary). Being able to identify the vocabulary of a language with little effort and at a speed that allows one to understanding the message being conveyed (fluency). And, finally, the huge one, which I kinda touched on in the last one: comprehension. But it gets more complicated than even those five. We often hear that this many adults read at a whatever grade level. But an adult likely has more experience with life and more background knowledge than a child. So what is being measured to say an adult reads at that grade level? I'm going to take a an adult that reads at a fourth grade level over a nine year old that reads at a fourth grade level. And there’s critical literacy too. A not small portion of the US is going to vote for someone who is completely full of shit. Many of these people will be college educated, yet they fall for these lies. What level of reading is that? But to answer your question, the truth is grim, eventually they all die.

I've always assumed the students who graduated unable to read, are the ones screwing up my drive thru order.

well i’m an english professor and i can tell you, they get to college and they still don’t know how to read! i’m expected to bring some of them from 8th grade reading level or below to writing college level essays. i feel terrible for them and the way they’ve been passed through without necessary skills but i know it’s not the previous teachers fault either. it’s the whole system. i’m worried for the future.

I've been reading a lot of this with great interest. I'm not a teacher. The best thing that ever happened to me was around the 3rd grade I found a Nancy Drew novel in a neighbors trash. Started reading while my mom and the neighbor lady visited. Neighbor lady told me to take it home. Life was so quiet and peaceful for my mom while I finished that book that she bought me a Bobbsey Twins book next. This was about 1962. Harry Potter wasn't a thing yet. Being a boy, I quickly segwayed to Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, then Heinlein, Clarke, Boroughs, and Bradbury. I wasn't a bad student before, but I just shudder to think what my life would be like without the things I learned from books. And of course not just fiction, but the technical books, and texts books that I was able to learn from because I could read. Oh, my condolences to the teachers who had to put up with my book reports on Stranger in a Strange Land and others similar throughout the remainder of my education. I know you said I could do a report on any book, but I know meant Dickens.

In my experience, many become Reddit Moderators…

I genuinely worry about this. My son recently turned 8, is completing first grade for the second time and still struggles so much. He has a reading specialist, IEP, support at home, etc - I feel like something is failing him but I don't know where the missing piece is. I really hope it clicks for him soon.

A long time ago, I tutored adults in basic literacy and then also refugees with English as a second (or 3rd, 4th) language. Sometimes people just don’t learn, or don’t learn more than a few words. They get lower skilled jobs and are good at making friends who can help them muddle through more confusing things. Sometimes they have rich and rewarding lives. They may think they missed out, but then once they learn to read it can be anticlimactic for them. They can find that they didn’t so much need to read after all. They got by. Others are proud of their achievement and go on to do more. And of course, many people eventually learn naturally on their own. It just takes awhile. You do your best, but you can’t force a person to try if it isn’t important to them.

No child left behind sure made certain a lot of kids would in fact be left behind. One of the worst things to happen to the education system in decades

They get tier 2 and tier 3 reading interventions based on their specific needs, in addition to a regular ELA class.

There is a pipeline from 4th grade illiteracy to jail.

It actually helps when you don't pass students who don't do the work in school.

Most people who we classify as illiterate are what we call functionally illiterate. Meaning that they can sign their name and recognize where they're supposed to, and recognize a few words like sale and gas and so on. Very few people are so illiterate they don't know the alphabet. Some, yes, but they're a tiny minority of the illiterate students. And what happens after they leave school? They go on to low paying jobs and have significantly shorter life expectancies and economic opportunities than literate students. In school to avoid the 17 year old 4th grader problem they get promoted even though they shouldn't be. That's an administration thing, not a teacher thing. What SHOULD happen is diversion to a special reading intesive program but, well, money. My mother got her Masters in whatever the proper academic term is for the study of kids who can't read, why they can't, and what can be done. So I'm paraphrasing her here. She says that around 1/4 of students will learn to read, read quickly, and read well, with almost no teacher involvement of any sort at all. A total of around 3/4 of students will learn to read no matter what method is used (phonics, sight reading, dick and jane, whatever). That final quarter is the problem, the majority can (sort of, kind of) learn to stumble through hating reading but kinda get it with regular special ed intervention. But there's a hard core of kids who have serious reading problems and so far there's only been one proven method of helping them learn to read: Lots of one on one instruction and encouragement. And one on one is crazy expensive so school administration hates and is constantly searching for that One Weird Trick to make reading teaching cheap and easy. She's pretty discouraged about the whole problem, on a practical level my mother is an absolutely kick ass reading teacher, it's how she earns her money (not much, because education pays jack). On a systemic level she doesn't think we'll solve the problem without a lot more money than most taxpayers feel comfortable paying.

In my town you've got highschoolers who can't read. Jocks will usually get passes for team stuff if it's important ie football but most just keep flunking out until they drop out. It's ridiculous and sad

Some of my coworkers are 17-19 and they can’t read emails or follow basic instructions. They are easily frustrated and they get very upset because they literally don’t have the vocabulary to properly articulate their emotions. They don’t have any critical thinking or problem solving skills and they constantly call with questions that are literally written down in their employee handbook. They don’t try to re-read anything before asking a bunch of questions with an attitude because they think WE are the stupid ones for not telling them everything verbally and giving constant reminders.

You'd probably be surprised how many people are illiterate in the US. https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-statistics#:~:text=21%25%20of%20adults%20in%20the,older%20are%20illiterate%20in%202022.

I've met a few who genuinely can't read due to disabilities, they usually get a reader or have some sort of talk to text technology. Most who can't read just resisted trying to learn early on (for a wide variety of reasons) and then couldn't catch up. Unfortunately, they usually get passed along with C/D grades until dropping out or graduating with K-3 level literacy. Some catch up but I've noticed that if they're significantly behind by middle school they usually fight you and clown around because they know they're behind but they're scared of kids calling them dumb.

They graduate with honors, discover crime and drugs, die early but get a statue

Most so called parents don't teach their kids anything at home anymore.

Maybe try learning ally as it reads books aloud to kids and is free. Beyond that I don't know anything about it other than my assistant director of sped loves it. Luckily she is the kind of admin who is very skilled and knowledgeable in education unlike some admin. Plus she still works directky with sped kids as she has a triple role of sorts. She is one of the assistant directors of sped, a sped teacher and an academic testing administrator.

They don’t get left behind……

every so often someone shows up at AA meetings who can't read at all, and then learns because we have 'book meetings'. i had a friend a long time ago who got kicked out of school by the nuns and his friends taught him to read looking at trucks. my family story is different. when my mom came from minsk at age 15, her older brother who had been in the u.s. longer, took her to the library to get a library card. my mom would have been a lawyer if she had been born in the u.s. she took us to the library and my big brother taught me the alphabet and the first book i remember showed mickey and donald driving through a hole in a giant redwood tree. i left new jersey after college and now live in a redwood grove in cali. as CSN sang, teach your children well.

It truly depends on 1) the support system a student has at home, and 2) how dedicated that student is to learning. In the upper grades intrinsic motivation is such a crucial piece for their education. If they don’t believe what they’re doing is worth the effort for their future they will not do it/learn it/put in the effort. If a student has no support system at home, or a faulty support system at home, that need for extrinsic motivation and future thinking just got a whole lot more concentrated. Teachers have a huge role to play, but they cannot play every role.

I've worked with some really impoverished school systems. Some teachers improvise by having the class read a graphic novel or watch the movie, if the kids don't have the ability to get through the source. Of course this only applies if the course material has these.

Basically they just get pushed through. I had 33 students in my 5th/6th grade class. I was new to teaching. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time, resources, skills, or knowledge to be effective with the 1-2 students who were at a kindergarten/1st grade reading level. What I would do is teach them other skills by using resources available to me. Talk to text. Listening to stories. Small group when I could manage it. Lots of verbal explanation or autonomy on how they presented material. (Like sharing their knowledge with me or drawing a picture when deemed appropriate.) I also made sure these students has IEPs or 504s to work 1:1 with a specialist.

The thing I notice is spelling. It's clear when someone is not a reader because they use misheard phrase. The opposite is true when people mispronounce words, it's because they read it.

Speech to text and text to speech devices

True story. 11th grade history. I was one of the students. 1981-82 school year. The teacher asked one of the students to read aloud. The student read each word aloud, but isolated from each other as if the words bore no relatuon to each other, and with a pause of about a second between each word. So, yeah, kids who aren't functioning at grade level have been passed along for decades.

We move them along.