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The Public Policy
The Kids Can’t Read
Functional illiteracy in our schools is increasing.
Forty percent of Atlanta eight-grade students tested Below Basic proficiency in reading on the 2009 edition of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal exam of academic achievement. Essentially two out of every five Atlanta students heading into high school are functionally illiterate — unable to comprehend a work as simple as Anne of Greene Gables or even complete mathematical word problems such as “Marty has 6 red pencils, 4 green pencils, and 5 blue pencils.”
Atlanta isn’t an isolated case. Twenty-eight percent of Georgia’s eighth-graders — one in every four — read Below Basic proficiency. This is a problem with nearly every race, age, and social class. Thirty-four percent of eighth-grade boys tested Below Basic in reading, as did one in every five white students and 40 percent of black students. The low levels of literacy also aren’t confined to the Peach State: Twenty-six percent of America’s eighth-graders and one in three fourth-graders are functionally illiterate.
If you’ve wondered why 1.3 million students drop out every year, why six million students languish in the nation’s special ed ghettos, or why girls outnumber boys on campus by as much as two-to-one, just take a look at America’s abysmally low levels of literacy. Far too few children, no matter their socioeconomic background, can read well enough to function in an economy in which literacy is more-important than ever. Boys are especially hit hard, often trailing their female peers in reading and falling far behind in other academic studies by the time they reach middle school.
Although the problem may begin at home, America’s public schools and education policies have also exacerbated the literacy problem. Few teachers at the elementary level are well-skilled in teaching children how to read; theories such as whole language — which emphasized reading whole books without dealing with phonics or understanding the context behind sentences and paragraphs — have also wreaked havoc on reading instruction.
The latest concerns over literacy have been, in part, spurred on by the Obama administration, which unveiled a project called Reading for Understanding Research Initiative to help improve literacy. Under the program, the U.S. Department of Education is awarding $100 million in grants to six groups of researchers (including those from the Educational Testing Service, the administrator of the SAT college entrance exam) to conduct research on how teachers can improve classroom reading instruction. This, in turn, marks the latest of several efforts (almost all ill-fated) by federal officials to improve how reading is taught in America’s schools.
But concerns about reading have become especially acute because of one of the most-troubling trends in higher education: The dearth of young men on campus. Between 1995-1996 and 2007-2008, the percentage of men on college campuses declined from 48 percent to 43 percent, according to the American Council on Education; there are now 1.39 women for every male on campus. Women now make up 55 percent of overall enrollment within the State University of New York system. The gaps are even larger elsewhere: At some colleges, women account for as many as 70 percent of the undergraduate population. Society is only grasping the consequences of this achievement gap, including the high rates of unemployment among males (especially those without high school diplomas) to the rash of more men living at home with their parents. The new gender gap has also become the subject of one of the hottest books in education, Why Boys Fail, by Education Week blogger Richard Whitmire.
But many students are failing to develop all the skills for proper reading. As a result, they are falling behind long before they reach sixth grade. One out of every three fourth-graders read Below Basic proficiency, according to NAEP; although slightly lower than the 36 percent of fourth graders reading Below Basic in 2002, the average reading score remains almost unchanged. Black and Latino students — the latter of which include first-generation Americans from immigrant homes — do poorly; 53 percent of black fourth-graders and 52 percent of their Latino counterparts are reading Below Basic. The illiteracy levels know no income barrier: Forty-nine of poor students read Below Basic proficiency while a (less-abysmal) 21 percent of wealthier students also have poor reading comprehension skills.
Boys, in particular, are struggling mightily in reading, no matter the race or income level of their parents. Thirty-six of all male fourth-graders tested Below Basic in reading, trailing their female peers by six percentage points. One out of every four male high school seniors with college-educated parents suffered from functional illiteracy.
The consequences of the failure to achieve full literacy are wide-ranging. The very skills involved in reading (including understanding abstract concepts) are also involved in more-complex mathematics including word problems and algebra. Being a good reader may not mean being equally skilled in math, but poor readers tend also to fail in math computations as well. Fifty-four percent of Atlanta eighth-graders scored Below Basic on the math portion of the 2009 NAEP, equivalent to the low reading levels. Nor are students likely to improve over time. The result is usually the path to dropping out of school and into welfare and prison.
Poor reading also partly explains the 63-percent increase in the nation’s special education population (now 13 percent of the nation’s public school enrollment) between 1976 and 2006. Among the largest categories of special ed students include developmental delay — which can just as often mean that the child wasn’t taught to read at home, dyslexic as it may mean that a child suffers from cognitive damage — or emotional disturbance (which can also be caused by the natural rebelliousness arising from frustration over poor reading skills). Reid Lyon, an education official under George W. Bush, determined in 1997 that most black boys landed in special education because they struggled in reading. As Stanford University Researchers Deborah Stipek and Sarah Miles determined in a 2006 study, low literacy levels in first grade are strong predictors of long-term disciplinary problems.
CERTAINLY READING PROBLEMS CAN begin at home. Families at all income levels who spend less time reading and engaging in conversation with their children — especially those from impoverished households whose parents tend to be poor readers themselves — will produce children with low reading skills. But it’s not all about income or interaction. Forty percent of all kindergarten students can only learn to read if they are specifically taught syllables, words, letter sounds and spelling. Boys, in particular, struggle because the area of their brains in which language and literacy is developed lags behind that of their female schoolmates.
Educators have understood these problems for decades; reading experts have spent years developing new ways to help lagging students improve reading before they reach fifth grade and work with boys to get them up to speed. This includes identifying poor readers early on and intensive teaching of linguistic skills every day. Few schools have implemented such practices in their classrooms.
The low quality of America’s teaching corps — the biggest reason for the nation’s dropout crisis — also affects reading instruction. Few university schools of education (which educate most of our teachers) do a proper job of teaching aspiring students how to address reading. Just 11 of 71 ed schools surveyed by the National Council on Teacher Quality in 2006 taught teachers all that they needed to provide adequate reading instruction.
A four-decade war over whether reading instruction should emphasize phonics and spelling or Whole Language (a system by which students should learn the meaning behind sentences) has also fueled the literacy crisis. During the 1970s and 1980s, states embraced Whole Language and ignored phonics, forgetting that kids need to know how to also sound words. Only after states saw reading scores decline did they reverse course. Most reading experts argue that phonics and Whole Language are both needed in order to learn reading. But schools aren’t doing a good job instructing in either area.
Federal efforts to improve reading instruction — most-notably President George W. Bush’s Reading First initiative — have either fallen to seed amid controversy or haven’t gained traction. The best solution may start at home: Parents could buy a copy of Hooked on Phonics and organize community reading sessions. It may be a while before public schools actually learn how to teach reading correctly — and improve literacy.
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (79) | Leave a comment
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Baloney Guy| 6.21.10 @ 6:44AM
Public schools are a monopoly and like all monopolies are expensive, goals are not met for lack of competition and service either deteriorates or becomes permanently sub-standard.
Throw in another monopoly in terms of the NEA and self serving public employee unions and failure is guaranteed.
Alan Brooks| 6.21.10 @ 8:49AM
Now we can tell secularists that religious schools can no longer be an sort of a threat; what on Earth do parents have to lose anymore by sending their children to religious schools?
I'm not even sure private schools in general are more expensive than public, when you reckon with the hidden costs.
Alan Brooks| 6.21.10 @ 8:51AM
Correction:
now we can tell PARENTS that religious schools can no longer be any sort of a threat.
Patrick| 6.21.10 @ 6:06PM
Parochial schools tend to spend half as much per student as public schools, yet the education is superior.
Vouchers for all!
believer| 6.22.10 @ 11:46AM
Patrick- School Vouchers came to a vote here in California many years back and failed misserably,
the reason, even the Christians were afraid that it
would close public schools. Were facing a crisis
in our schools and Bankruptcy in Government because the voters are too stupid to vote.
Miss Alabama| 6.21.10 @ 9:32AM
Being a poor reader is a sympton of a much more serious problem that cannot be addressed by the school system.
A knowledge of phonics helps children in the lower grades decode words. As they progress to the higher grades, reading becomes extremely complex, and here is where they fall behind.
In order to understand material designed say for an 8th grader, the student must have a broad vocabulary, a strong general knowledge base, cultural literacy, and a mind capable of analytical reasoning. These intellectual attributes can only be attained through reading regularly for pleasure.
As we all know too well, TV, computers, ipods, electronic games, and the ubiquitous cell phone are commanding too much of our young people's time.
The printed word--the old technology--cannot compete with the glamourous allure of the exciting, cutting-edge technology that absorbs today's youth.
Boys like action. Reading for pleasure is far too passive an activity for most boys.
Also, intelligence is a huge factor in being able to read well. Children with low intelligence will never be good readers. That's a sad fact.
I am so thankful I have never been saddled with the herculean task of teaching children how to read.
How I empathize with the poor teachers who are expected to peform miracles.
Evelyn Payne| 6.21.10 @ 2:34PM
How right you are, Miss Alabama,
I taught seventh graders for eleven years, but I became so frustrated with the factors--all outside my control--that prevented so many of my students comprehending their texts.
Vocabulary, knowledge (ability to understand allusions and references), and intelligence were what these students lacked.
Much of their "knowledge" consisted only of trashy popular culture tidbits.
mackinney29| 6.21.10 @ 4:13PM
You are absolutely on track here. I've been re-reading E. D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy" which is still amazingly relevant. Too bad no one paid any attention to it back in the 80's because we're paying the price today. I work in a library, and have kids taller than I am who cannot find books because they clearly don't know the alphabet.
And how about high school students in Advanced Placement classes who bring in lists of movies they can watch instead of having to write a boring old research paper? Trust me, I got some funny looks when I said I hoped they would be writing a compare-and-contrast paper about the difference between the movie and the TRUTH! Ya know, I suspect no one ever told them that people like Oliver Stone, for example, don't necessary deal in facts.
JimE| 6.22.10 @ 12:06AM
Alabama troll, Yes blame the children and cry about"poor teachers". Your whole game is about defending substandard teachers.
Layne S| 6.23.10 @ 3:19PM
I disagree with you that "Being a poor reader is a sympton of a much more serious problem that cannot be addressed by the school system." How did we ever gain a literacy rate in the 95%+ range in this country?
There are some really good resources available to help even novice teachers to help kids learn to read. Barton Reading and Spelling is one. It is proven to help even those kids and adults diagnosed with dyslexia.
I empathize with 4th grade teachers and beyond when the K, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers haven't done their jobs - teaching kids to read. Unfortunately, as the article states, universities aren't teaching the future teachers how to teach kids to read - using phonics. And they didn't learn it themselves, so they are completely at a loss.
We can't blame 7th grade teachers completely when 1/3 of their class shows up functionally illiterate. Most are probably really good, committed teachers.
We must get serious about making sure kids are taught to read using systematic phonics instruction in K thru 3rd grade. I'm thankful the literacy council in our area is using Barton Reading and Spelling to help kids and adults alike using volunteers. It's a great thing. Now, if only the schools would catch on....
Catherine S | 6.30.10 @ 12:46PM
In an ideal world, all parents would read to their children in order to inspire their imagination and stimulate their thirst for knowledge - but that is not the case in the real world. In many cases, if not most cases, it is up to the schools to teach kids not only the mechanics of reading but the love of reading (if possible). In addition to the use of Barton Reading and Spelling, when it comes to reading books, why not have the teacher act as narrator and have the kids read the parts out loud or move around the room along with reading their parts? Certainly there are ways to put movement into their reading even when it is not something that particularly interests them. There are also standing desks that some schools are using; it is very experimental but seems to facilitate concentration among middle and high school kids. To help the boys read tests and absorb what is being asked, why not have tests on the walls so that boys have to mix and match by having to move around the classroom and match up Velcro, felt or sticker labels that correspond with questions on a test? For other areas, perhaps we could start backwards from the finished product to the steps to get there: from a teacher to what it takes to be one, from a computer software programmer to all that it takes to be one, from a nurse or doctor to all that It takes to be one, etc. Query the (middle and high school) kids regarding some careers and what they might like doing; then teach them what it takes to get there. This would give reason to their learning and maybe provide some motivation to read.
crosscubes| 7.20.12 @ 3:49AM
We can still buy, on Amazon, the book published in 1955, written by Rudolf Flesch, "Why Johnny Can't Read: And What You Can Do About It.
BTW, I taught my son to read, when I homeschooled him, but did not start on phonics with him until he was 7 years old! At 8, we gave him a Nintendo and a subscription to Nintendo Magazine, and he read everything in those magazines. (The point is not that he got a Nintendo; the point is, he was reading something of interest to him.) He went to a Catholic school, grades 6, 7 and 8. When tested in 8th grade, he placed in the top 2% of the nation for his reading and vocabulary. He came from a home in which his dad was a college graduate (English major) and postgraduate work, but I am not a college graduate. There was seldom a night I, or their dad, did not read to them, from the time they were very young. I don't think I was the best homeschool teacher, so it isn't that hard to teach a child to read! There are a lot of sources, books, available to "teach," adults how to help the children who have some difficulty, but again, it is not an impossible task, and it doesn't take forever. What is "sorry," is how many teachers are set up to fail at the task of teaching children to read, and even sorrier, the children who are set up to fail because of poor teaching methods. Our homeschool resources were very helpful, but I also learned about teaching from books I got..... at the library!
PhoebeMoses| 6.21.10 @ 6:52AM
Couldn't agree with Baloney Guy enough. We continually throw money at the problem and Johnny still can't read. What's that old saying?...the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting the same result. Get the State out of the education business..make it local.
Appleby| 6.21.10 @ 7:05AM
Throw in the Tweetheads who need to cram all communication into 140 characters, and such frustrating trash as Leapfrog with its electronic wand that Junior moves along a pre-wired page to hear a mechanical voice *read* and whose parents (via the commercials) cry MY BABY IS READING! (but we never see Junior vainly moving that wand along the page of his social studies book) -- not to mention the serious lack of anything worth reading, and nobody should be surprised. I read and collect childrens books, and have noticed that most of the stuff being published these days for kids are either painfully PC books about Little [ethnic girl] Fights For Freedom in [ethnic themed country], or books about divorce, anorexia, foster care, bullying, death, vampires and sex. A persistent theme is: girls divorcing/divorced parents (or mother whose husband has vanished) ship her off to unknown relative in the country; girl is bored and angry until she finds a gateway to another universe in the attic/an old game/a book/the garden, or finds that her relative is an alien/angel/wizard/Being Of Light, and slips through to become a princess/lost heir/magical being who saves the universe and finds the key to her parents divorce or fathers disappearance, returns triumphant to re-unite her parents. Or the girl is stalked by a *vampire* (a much older man who sneaks into her bedroom to watch her sleep, etc.) and falls in love with him because her family is dysfunctional/boring/etc. Modern literature has become so bad that the bookstores are beginning to fill up with re-issues of the original (not sanitized for your protection) Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Trixie Belden mystery series books, soon to be followed by other normal books about normal people living in normal homes, doing normal things.
If you want kids to start reading, give them something fit to read that will lift them out of their world and give them something interesting to peruse.
Oh, and stop the vuvuzuela chorus of droning parents who campaign relentlessly against homework, because *kids need time to be kids.* That is, they need time to watch American Idol and play Grand Theft Auto XXVIIII in the car.
Ora Rae| 6.21.10 @ 9:24AM
The new children's books are horrible. I work as a substitute in school libraries and classes. The kids are starved for better stories. They refer to me as the story teacher because I always have an interesting history story to tell. My favorite line is, "truth is stranger than fiction." Many have started reading the tiny selection of biographies that are available.
You are right, the new literature is trash, sexual, and nonsense. The boys hate to read because they can find very little adventure and boy stories. Classes are fit for girls as are the books.
crosscubes| 7.20.12 @ 3:26AM
I agree.
Richard Baker| 6.21.10 @ 7:45AM
As a former teacher in Florida, I was amazed at the inability of my 9th and 10th students to be able to read aloud in class. Sometimes it was a painful experience for one and all even with my helping as the student read. Close the public schools, give the parents the money to find a private/parochial school of their choice, and fire the teachers and administrators. The system is irretrievably broken and has become a refuge for the sick, lame, and lazy.
Robert Pinkerton| 6.21.10 @ 7:46AM
Sixty-two years ago, after my Dad was discharged from the veterans' hospital to outpatient care for postwar polio, he amused himself in his bedriddenness by making games of those preparatory drills prerequisite to teaching a child to read. His formula was simple enough to state: The beginning of learning to read is learning one's letters. (Prof. Ayres purports to rebut that with his monotonous refrain: Drill and kill - on the grounds that such exercises trammel the child's spontaneity?) By my fourth birthday, so I am told, I was reading at third-grade level (higher then than now?); and my mother was told that I was "... too accelerated for peer adjustment..."
Considering time and place, that is nothing less than the most valuable gift I have ever received.
Paul Ashley| 6.21.10 @ 7:49AM
Many years ago, the Canadian governemtn threatened to shut down its state-funded "schools of education" due to the dismal quality of the "teachers" the produced. The poor quality itself was due to the refusal of the educational establishment to teach in a way that worked for generations, instead opting for "new" methods. the old ones were just, well, so passe. What happened in Canada? Nothing. The threats were empty gestures to get votes.
Until taxpayers demand that their lawmakers inturn demand a change in the curricula taught to future teachers, insist on freedom of choice in eductaion, and work to break the power of hte teachers' unions over these areas, nothing will change.
LexieB| 6.21.10 @ 7:58AM
I know this isn't an ideal solution, but I am convinced that the reason why my two boys started reading at age 4, is because we permanently leave the closed captions on on our tv. Our kids are always being exposed to reading and words and sentences, even when they are watching tv. This is a simple and free way to help kids learn how to read. I know, it doesn't address the problems of kids watching tv and playing video games, and low test scores, but if every tv show had captions at the bottom all the time, these illiteracy and below basic reading scores wouldn't be anywhere where they are now.
I disagree about the quality of children's literature today. While I read Nancy Drew stories as a kid, they were horrible out of date 25 years ago when I read them. They won't hold any child's attention today. There are some great books out there today, and I think children need to be able to read fantasy and science fiction books, not just "normal books about normal people".
About the article, I have to say that having spent time in several public schools, there is so little time for a teacher to give extra reading instruction time to the students who need it. Teachers are overwhelmed and undersupported.
Christopher Holland| 6.21.10 @ 10:44PM
How about turning off the TV and reading to your kid instead? If you do not bother reading, how do you expect the kid to like it? Reading should be fun - make it that way, the same way that Tom Sawyer got out of whitewashing the fence by telling his mates how much fun it was, so they queued up to do it and paid him for the privilege. Reading should be an adventure for children, the way to explore new worlds and find out interesting things. That is how I saw reading when I was a kid - I loved it, I enjoyed going to the library and getting new books. I don't get the feeling that anybody thinks like that today, they think reading is boring, hard work or both. No wonder they get nothing out of it, they never learned how to make it enjoyable.
Curly Smith| 6.21.10 @ 8:03AM
"Families... especially those from impoverished households whose parents tend to be poor readers themselves -- will produce children with low reading skills."
It used to be that the poor understood the value of an education, that it was the best way to bootstrap oneself out of the mire. When did that change? Oh, right, I said "poor", which is a financial condition, and you said "impoverished", which is a way of life.
I might have to disagree with Appleby about the homework though... if the 'utes are in a ghetto school then I suspect that the cost/benefit of homework approaches infinity so the time would be better spent teaching the kids how to spend food stamps.
Melvin| 6.21.10 @ 8:15AM
First kids have to have a desire to read. Reading as many of us who post on A.S. know full that it stimulates thought, through imagination.
It appears children today do not have imagination. Their imagination is provided to them by their helicopter parents or an electronic device.
A kid being a kid will figure out, "why should I think for myself, when either mom or dad will do it for me. And besides if my mind needs stimulation, I also have my two friends: Sony, and XBox."
For those millions of parents who do not force their kids to utilize their own minds, are going to have zombies for kids.
How many kids do we see playing in the street and each others yards anymore? Or see a group of boys walking down the street with either fishing poles or some contraction that they had used every tool in their dad's garage to build?
The sounds of kids interacting with each other and building social skills are no more. Heck, it is an extreme rarity anymore to even see a kid mowing their parents yard.
They are either inside the home with the A/C turned on full blast vegetating in front of a computer monitor, video game device, or following behind mom with an portable game device firmly grasped by both hands.
Then the get into the family vehicle and transfer from the remote gaming device to the mother ship gaming device inside the minivan, while mom loads groceries into the vehicle.
Besides, Baloney Guy, PhoebeMoses, and Appleby said it all, we as a society do not task the younger generations to have the hunger to read, and the crap that is being put out today isn't fit for human consumption.
Some genius the other day from some univeristy said that, "Herman Melville's classic, Moby Dick was written with a racist point of view."
Not even the great white whale is safe.
Sandra| 6.21.10 @ 8:22AM
If you believe reading is dismal, don't look at our children's comprehension of mathematical skills and knowledge.
Let's skip all the "feel good stuff" elf esteem does NOT come from the outside by being told 'you are special.' It's from the inside when you learn and master something. From writing to being able to read what you wrote.
Instead of "extra practice tests" let's let the children outside to play a few times during the day. Instead of TV and computer games, how about a dozen REAL books to read, and reading kids to sleep?
Sandra| 6.21.10 @ 8:23AM
Opps! "elf" ought to have been SELF.
SpellerHeller| 6.21.10 @ 3:36PM
And I think you mean "oops!"
beachmom| 6.21.10 @ 8:27AM
The govt. schools are more interested in keeping and getting more money from the feds than in educating.
One of my boys is dyslexic. The sp. ed. system is not set up to help kids succeed. It is set up to keep kids in the system so they don't lose jobs or money.
By the way, I pulled him out and enrolled him in an online school and he read more difficult books than the advanced students at the high school and is now in college. With no extra help from any sp. ed.
My daughter was reading before kindergarten but the schools are also unprepared to deal with kids like her.
They are most interested in kids fitting into the cookie cutter form they want. They want a homogeneous student population that makes their numbers look good in yearly reports.
Thunderbottom| 6.22.10 @ 10:03AM
I agree; special ed's a racket. The people administering the special ed programs have no incentive to have kids succeed and get out of the program (more kids in the program means more funding for the school). The kids in special ed remain in that educational ghetto equipped with ready-made excuses why they can't read or do math and well on their way to being permanent members of the underclass.
southernsue| 6.21.10 @ 9:03AM
parenting is the problem, bottom line. 47% of the children born in the USA are out of wed lock.
i know a mother that both her daughters had babies within a month of each other. no fathers in sight , lots of welfare money, though. this mother actually saw nothing wrong with this situation. i pray for these little ones being brought into this world with no chance.
i wonder what kind of parents these mothers are going to be? how many boy freinds will pass through these kids lifes. how many baby sitters? how many times will they have to move? it is a circle that has to be broken.
Thunderbottom| 6.22.10 @ 10:05AM
How much abuse will these kids suffer at the hands of their momma's serial boyfriends? But that's another topic for discussion.
Deb| 6.21.10 @ 9:04AM
Sure there are some great "new" books in print today, but stick with someone like Redwall author Brian Jacques.
Otherwise go for classics that have outlasted the author's life such as books by authors Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, P.G. Wodehouse, and stories such as the Arthurian legends...
Richard| 6.22.10 @ 1:26PM
Redwall! Alas, how does that brave Martin fare?
Give me a school, I'll give the children Jacques, and you will have brave clever boys and wise protective girls...Oh, and such feasts!
crosscubes| 7.20.12 @ 4:00AM
I was fortunate. In grade school, I was in a school in Pasadena, CA, where the school had us taken in a bus (the entire class) to the public library; regularly! In fourth grade, I read, The Arabian Nights, and loved it. Too racey? Well, in fourth grade, I didn't know what was racey!
scot4999| 6.21.10 @ 9:16AM
'Your Baby can read!' Bought it and have been using it for a couple months now. Baby started on it at 5 months of age. He loves it, hope it works.
Bruce| 6.21.10 @ 9:21AM
I was appalled when my kids started school in the late 70's and early 80's. I worked with all of them on reading and arithmetic. However, the school no longer believed in "phonics", or learning the "rules" (i before e except after c), or Heaven Forbid! memorizing the multiplication tables. I pay cash for groceries and keep track of the amount I am spending by rouding up and down and calculating taxes in my head. The cashier's are always amazed when I have the correct amount of cash within $10 ready by the time they finish ringing everthing up. And I can't count the number of times a cashier has given me more coinage than is necessary because they can't figure out that 2 dimes and a nickel are the same as a quarter.
Dick Simmons| 6.21.10 @ 9:26AM
I work in a big-chain bookstore. From what I've observed the adult choice of reading is getting only marginally better than their kids' "vampire-zombie-wizard-wise animal-shaman" fare. There are certain well-known popular authors churning out the modern equivilent of pulp fiction. Whole forests chopped down to provide beach-reading (not that there's anything wrong with that) for a clientel that doesn't want to be challenged with anything new. There are a few notable exceptions, of course. Sadly the dreck being published for children and their parents is necessary to bring out the new authors with something to say. On the whole, I console myself with the fact that at least people are READING. That's the thing to cherish. One can always decide on one's own to explore later.
owyheewine| 6.21.10 @ 9:40AM
Speaking of reading, this aricle needed some significant proofreading.
Anyone who read "The Bell Curve" should not be surprised. Not only are we producing an ever increasing number of mentally less abled children, but also we have an education system that tries to homogonize instruction. Evryone has to be equal you know. Actually some educators realize that the modern system is a failure, and needs some serious revision. Texas has been a leader in testing children, not as a high stakes pass or fail, but as an analytical tool to find deficiencies early so that a child's teacher can individualize instruction to correct the areas where the young person is falling behind. Unfortunately this approach is beyond the capabilities of a large number of educators, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.
MG| 6.21.10 @ 10:42AM
What kids need is some individual attention. I was almost held back a grade. My mother tutored me over the summer and brought me up to speed. No more reading trouble after that.
If a person cannot read well, its like riding a bike for the rest of their lives instead of moving on to driving a car. I loved reading after that summer with my mom as teacher. Still do.
Dick Simmons| 6.21.10 @ 10:57AM
Great comment, MG, so true. My siblings and I had a mother who read to us when we were small. In the end nothing can substitute for a parent's care.
Redneck53| 6.21.10 @ 11:16AM
Let's see, boys don't have adventure stories to read, so they can't read? Tom Sawyer, The Red Badge of Courage, Moby Dick, and on, and on, where have these books gone? Teachers(union) are more worried about salary then teaching. For those that actually WANT to teach, I admire you. Throw off the NEA and do your job. Save money by cutting the outrageous number of administers and beaureucrats in the field. Then maybe you won't have to spend your own money on supplies.
Melvin| 6.21.10 @ 11:45AM
Redneck53, unfortunately it is illegal for boys to act like boys anymore. If they remotely show an interest in anything masculine they are derided as being angry, racist, sexist, homophobes.
Many males today are unfortunately more interested in products such as guyliner, and manscara.
I read somewhere were some university study determined that Melvile's Moby Dick was racist.
How many times do we hear, "Oh, we are going to have to lay of hundreds of teachers." But we never hear, "Hundreds of administrators being laid off or given pink slips."
School or educational administrator is just jargon for, "Cronyism" either fire them in mass or put they're butts back into the classroom. This Country does not need hundreds, thousands, or millions of educational administrators they are nothing more than costly dead weight with all those high end perks and retirement benifits.
School pension plans are also what is a gaping sucking chest wound in states budgets.
Pat| 6.21.10 @ 5:22PM
Melvin, spot on observations. Not surprisingly, American sociologists, who number as predominantly female, are busily writing their "What's Going On Here?" essays and study results. But the cultural decline of American males shouldn't surprise anyone who hasn't been working in Antarctica the last couple of decades.
From politics to television, the constant refrain is that males, particularly white males, have ruined American society, what with their need to be in control, their intolerance and their greed. For 20 consecutive seasons, the popular crime drama, "Law & Order" showcased the propensity of white American males to committ the most disgusting and heinous of crimes. With the preponderance of rapes, swindles, brutal murders and kidnappings committed by white males within New York City, it's truly amazing the jails and prisons house so many minorities - guess it must be racism at work.
What most alarms the sociologists is the decline in ambition of the American male, avoiding college, avoiding marriage and family. Like the Dr. Frankenstein myth, the monster creaated by the good doctor is out of control, a caricature of the real thing, uncaring, uncivilized, even
drinking the doctor's cold Budweiser without permission. Where is the modern Mr. Right women ask? The Prince Charming with the good education and a good job to boot. American women may have to lower their expectations and settle for Mr. Construction Worker or Mr. Day Laborer. American males were primarily responsible for creating the richest country on earth - but it couldn't last, the culture is changing and the sociolgists grow ever more alarmed. What a pity.
Sheila| 6.21.10 @ 1:21PM
Christian schools teach phonics (Abeka or Bob Jones University Press books are excellent) and grammar and my kids learned both. Boys by nature are much more active than girls, but they can and do enjoy reading stories for boys - as Appleby noted, most modern kids books are unreadable - lousy story lines, preachy tones, few words of Greek or Latin origin, and lots of social consciousness raising. For an early reader, try Children's Illustrated Classics - my younger has read "The Prince and the Pauper," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Count of Monte Cristo," and many others this way. They can move onto the original and unabridged versions when they're able. The problem isn't schools and the solution isn't government initiatives (whether from Bush or Dear Leader). Parents need to read to their children and read for themselves (we are the only people I know with numerous bookcases in our home) and English needs to be taught as English (i.e. phonics) and not Chinese. Decline and fall.
Oldefarte| 6.21.10 @ 3:00PM
THIS hit the nail on the head of the problem with this country. Abortion/birth control, combined with a wholesale revamping of the educational system is a ultimate necessity, that if not accompolished, will result in the destrustion of this country. Manufacturers are outsourcing jobs to China/India not only due to the labor union wage rate disparity, but also due to the higher educational levels in those countries. Our public schools are spitting out functional illerates in a kick-the-can-down-the-road fashion. Teachers are overwhelmed and understaffed with increasing classrooms filled with impoverished/illerate children, Parents buy their children four wheel dirt bikes, guns, footballs, dolls,etc; but not books. Until parents begin to take their childrens' educational welfare seriously [instead of passing it off on schools], this is a SNOWBALL ROLLING DOWNHILL TOWARD THE BRICK WALL!!!!
Quimby| 6.21.10 @ 3:25PM
You're all missing the point. We don't need no stinkin' education.
As Mrs. Palin has told us time after time after time, real Americans don't go to college because then they become one of the liberal elite who are destroying this country.
Real Americans are proud that they disdain those effete socialist things like reading, writing, and arithmetic. Only by remaining ignorant can America stay strong.
If despising edumacated peepel is gud enuff fore Mrs. Palin, its gud enuff for me.
mackinney29| 6.21.10 @ 4:16PM
What a maroon...
Mike| 6.21.10 @ 4:30PM
Quimby, the only way your comment could make any sense whatsoever would be if people were supposed to learn reading, writing and arithmetic in college. I hope it's obvious how ridiculous that notion is.
As far as I'm concerned, the best way to get your kids to be readers is to be one yourself. Read voraciously. Read to your kids when they're little. Tell them stories from what you read as they get older. If reading is fun for you and you communicate that, they'll be interested in it. I'm convinced that's why all of our kids are avid readers.
believer| 6.22.10 @ 11:35AM
Quimby- Im sure that your so educated and smart
that you voted for a Democrat or Republican, the
two partys that have Bankrupted our Nation.
Oldefarte| 6.22.10 @ 11:38AM
I think his point is SARCASTIC. We need good, effective education; not the liberal claptrap now being indoctrinated in schools. The three R's, not African-American, Indian, Spanish culture lessons!!!!!!
Helen| 7.15.10 @ 1:02PM
I like it. It`s so ironical
chuck| 6.21.10 @ 4:30PM
Johnny couldn't read in the 1950's Eisenhower said so. After billions spent on reading proficiency by the government...Johnny still can't read along with Leroy, Tyrone and the English teacher Mr. Jones.
Je me rappelle| 6.21.10 @ 5:10PM
Most of the children in the schools where I've taught are poor readers, reading well below their grade levels. Schools are like any other enterprise. Inferior employees (students) will consistently produce inferior results.
How many of us shun public venues like movie theaters because so few people know how to behave in a group setting? The same social pathologies infect our classrooms. Mandates to "educate" emotionally disturbed students in the same classroom as ordinary students make any learning all but impossible. The number of emotionally disturbed children and those whose families simply never taught them how to control themselves in a group setting makes the notion of public education obsolete. It only takes a few (and there are always at least a few) of these students in every classroom to force most class time to be spent in a struggle for control. That is why so many of today's students cannot read, learn math, or master any other subject, including lunch and physical education.
Mastering basic social skills used to, and still must, precede education. Without them, learning is impossible. There is also no substitute for instilling intellectual curiosity, interest in learning and a thirst and respect for achievement in our children before sending them to school.
Teachers do not need Power Point projectors, "Smart Boards" and other absurd, high-priced substitutes for chalk and blackboards to succeed. They do not require advanced degrees whose sole purpose is to increase their compensation and prepare them for jobs in the education administration industry without improving their performance as teachers. They need a society in which students have two parents who have properly reared their children before sending them to school. Without that, government can print an infinite amount of money and throw it at its public schools and still experience failure.
Government would do better to spend our money and its attention on building more prisons. We are going to need them. As our society seems determined to set up its schools to fail, law enforcement will ultimately be our only growth industry.
Medialit| 6.25.10 @ 1:33PM
Je me rappelle: Your's is the most insightful comment I have read in months of following educational blogs, Education Week, professional journals and etc. ad infinitum. I would like to copy your article and give it to every administrator and educator in my district.
As a media specialist, I have become, sadly, accustomed to populations of students who cannot be enticed by 'real' books, graphic books, audio/plaway books or books that speak to their 'lexile' level and specific interests. Yes, I have occasionally experienced the gift of that one, rare student, who becomes inspired to read despite the fact that they lack role models and reading materials at home. However, the MAJORITY of our students cannot sit still long enough to hear a 2 minute booktalk, are not intrigued by watching an author online (even ones as compelling as Walter Dean Myers and Gary Paulsen) and cannot alphabetize well enough to find the books by Walter Dean Myers on the library shelves.
The only flaw in your reasoning that I can find is the insistence on having two parents. I'm afraid the reality is that a tremendous number of children come from nontraditional families and the ideal of two parents is just that -- an ideal. But I don't see any reason why a single parent, a grandparent, an uncle or even an older sibling can't instill appropriate behavior into a child.
At my school, 10-20 suspensions/day is not an unusual statistic. I want to shake adults throughout this entire country and say: Come into the schools! Watch these kids! Listen to these kids! Observe a superb teacher attempt to excite and involve her students, but who is finally defeated/shouted down by those ubiquitous 5-6 students in each class who disrupt learning for all.
Some say there should just be a stricter discipline plan, but year after year, innovative models of classroom behavior, staff development with experts on 'children of poverty' and all the best intentions do NOT change the pattern of behavior of these children.
Our teachers talk about this issue constantly. Yet no one has an answer, and the administration has its hands tied by parents who are as poorly behaved as their suspended children and by admonitions from 'above' that they keep suspension levels down.
I am so tired and disillusioned with the American public for their constant derision of teachers and schools. Once again, I can only say: Come in the schools. OBSERVE THE STUDENTS. Watch the teachers, young and old, experienced and just fresh from graduate school, attempt to provide their students with the excellent education to which they are rightly entitled.
WHO IS BLOCKING OUR STUDENTS' RIGHT TO AN EXCELLENT EDUCATION? Those of you who are backseat drivers have no legitimate right to criticize ANY teacher until you have stepped into their shoes and are faced with this behavior. The people who are keeping our children from getting a great education are sitting right beside them! Come on America! Stand up for decency, respect and just plain old good citizenship. If children cannot listen, sit still and respect a teacher, why do they have the right to interfere with those children who really DO want to read and learn?
If it's not the children's fault, then let's start focusing on those parents/guardians/relatives/adults who are failing to provide them with even the minimal amount of behavior skills for negotiating the intricacies of the twenty-first century.
I am still trying hard to have faith in President Obama. I think he should listen less to his education 'czar' and look at more blogs like this one to see the frustration and sadness expressed by so many, many teachers. Yes, we need money for the schools, but what we really HAVE TO HAVE is someone who will inspire school administrators to create the ways and means by which students who WANT to learn do not have to compete with students who do not want to learn.
I'm still hoping.
Tish | 6.21.10 @ 6:54PM
None of this is surprising, since many teachers can't read very well themselves. Add to that illiterate and uncaring parents, and a system which allows truancy and lack of effort, and you have a poisonous soup. But schools can teach children, even those with borderline IQ scores, if they're motivated and allowed to.
Mr. Kotter| 6.21.10 @ 7:03PM
Rappelle...the single biggest problem with education is maintaining a proper learning environment in the classroom. This is the root of every problem mentioned in this post; illiteracy; poor social skills; etc. In my opinion, the first challenge in the classroom is determining the struggling-but-trying, and the has-no-business-being-there students. Those HNBBTS's should be ruled with an iron fist, if not removed from the classroom. Primary attention should payed first and foremost to the SBTS's, day in, day out. The talented students should be used as props and as supplements for learning for the SBTS's. I know this might seem simplistic but I know many, many teachers and have heard he same story countless times: "...If only I could control my classroom better, everything else would work itself out..."
crosscubes| 7.20.12 @ 4:56AM
This was certainly the experience of my husband when he was briefly a full time substitute teacher; he was a sub, but was like a regularly teacher, being in class everyday. But this was in the junior high school and high school. Those of you writing about the classroom behavior, are you referring to the 6 year olds? I will add, from the little research I did (see above comment, I went to the library to teach myself) my second son spent his early years playing, much of it outside, which is where I think kids should be, especially boys. I know some girls are early readers, but they are ahead of boys the same age. Not only do I think the boys are not ready for school, I think that the use of large motor muscles helps develop their brain for learning to read. But, in this country, what we call education in those early years, is part of the nanny state; the babysitter. Still, if we must use a public system as a babysitter, some of these kids would be better off receiving supervised playtime with little classroom time, (it's not that they can't learn anything, but they don't need that much classroom time) until they are 6 or 7 years old. For older students, it is impossible to teach those who don't want to be in class, and it requires a different process if one's goal is to teach them, i.e, removing them from the regular public school system, and placing them in a different environment.
Valerie Kaiser| 6.21.10 @ 8:17PM
Dyslexia is a much bigger problem than most people realize. Their is no funding to address it, so they lump them in as ADD and leave them to struggle in "special education "classrooms. After confusing them w/"whole language", they have very little chance to truly read for uderstanding.
DaveS| 6.21.10 @ 8:40PM
Whole language (a California export to the rest of the education establishment) is a bust and has been propped up. And the female to male ratio on campus can in part be traced to black women on campus (good) without corresponding black men on campus (probably not so good.) And maybe college is just a high school extension, so that men don't see it as anything but a delay tactic. I get accused of using 'big' words at work all the time - words with which 8th graders in 1900 had no difficulty. Try to interview without control of the language in a challenge setting: you're lost. Geez, I want people to able to read American Spectator online and only a woefully small number of people can hang in there long enough to do so.
Yosemeti Sam| 6.22.10 @ 1:20AM
" The Kids Can't Read ...."
Ha, ha - the Democrats can't either.
Neither the 2000+ pages of BHO healthscare nor communications from irate constituents nor - the
handwriting on the wall portending November.
Marc Jeric| 6.22.10 @ 2:50AM
Show me a strong union and I will show you a dead or dying industry - steel, automobile, textile, apparel, electronics...and of course Postal Service, Amtrak, schools!
45% of teachers "teach" (mainly self-esteem) while 45% "administer, develop, communicate, enforce hate speech and multiculturalism and political correctness, congregate, interrelate...".
Petronius| 6.22.10 @ 9:35AM
Despots prefer a populace that cannot read and reason. Teachers likewise. Schooling is about conformity, not learning. Back in grade school I asked a question of a priest in religion class. He would not answer, but asked me what I thought. When I responded he hollered at the top of his lungs, "you're not supposed to think!! You're supposed to do as you're told!!!" This was the old pre Vatican II parochial school where the order of the day was horseshit for the hell of it. The reaction of a lot of students fostered Liberalism emanating from sentiments heard on the playground like, "when I have kids, I'm going to let them do anything they want." And herewith, the results. Today the over controlling educrats produce 3 types of graduates, (?) Sheeple, dysfunctional ambulatory vegetables, and the smart ones who learn early how to game the system by regurgitating all the b.s. those in authority want to hear while concealing all else.
From K through college, those who know to think dare not ever admit it.
Pasturized teechur (ret P'gog)| 6.22.10 @ 9:50AM
IT'S IN THE (MORSE) CODE ! ....
In my teens, my brother & I dove into ham radio. Back then, you had to demonstrate clear proficiency in both sending and receiving Morse to obtain a Federal license. Though my brother was better at it than I, we both went far enough to experience the same effect.... learning Morse was a lot like phonics...you had to recognize the meaning of the individual "symbols" and mentally string them together...speed increase was strictly a function of practice-dedication-zeal. Up to about 23-25 words per minute, decoding was letter-by letter...but a funny thing happened right around 25 wpm....we started hearing-recognizing words....and further speed increase seemed to occur by a broadening of this effect....you got faster because you heard more words and fewer letters....at least, so it seemed...aapparently, the brain-mind automatized the decoding....we didn't have to attend directly to it...
My suspicion is that learning to read well is pretty much analogous... phonics is the decoding that needs to become automatic by, well, DRILL.
I suspect that whole language advocates recognized that "expert" readers didn't bother with decoding....they "saw" whole words....even whole phrases....and then made the mistaken assumption that learning the phonics wasn't really necessary....visual pattern recognition might suffice. Well, for most of us, language isn't primarily visual...it's auditory....phonics is the bridge between these two different communicative modalities....by leaving out the phonics, they cut off the visual symbols from their logical origin....and made the interpretation/comprehension of novel wordings
essentially impossible to systematically analyze.
Some of my former language instruction colleagues ( I taught sciences...mostly physics)wore there was research that verified the efficacy of the "hole" language approach(I think there's a huge cognitive hole in it, you see,...), but I suspect that some of the data didn't account for the possibility that some "eager beavers" or particularly talented kids might figure out phonics on their own, with enough of a frequency to skew the numbers...
My feelin's?
Using Phonics is not only sound, but resoundingly so....
Whole language has a glaring hole in it...and may even be almost unholy!
Donald Potter | 6.22.10 @ 4:03PM
Absolutely Correct! I am also an amateur radio operator: NG5W. I have an Amateur Extra Class License from back in the days when 20 wpm Morse Code was a requirement. I also taught Amateur Radio Communications classes for the Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, TX for seven years. Learning to copy high speed code and learning to read with phonics are exactly parallel. Phonics is the basis and drill is the key. Unknown to many, it is most powerful when taught first; in fact, whole-language (look and say) when taught first hampers (interferes with) high reading achievement. Click on my name above to go to my website where you will find solid, reliable information on teaching reading with phonics-first.
Glynne Sutcliffe| 6.22.10 @ 10:31AM
If someone had a real answer, would anyone listen? Sometimes I think we have all become addicted to the secondary gains obtained by running a fine argument with splendid rhetoric. Anyone who has commented above, and who would like to see some action, and get involved in rolling out an answer across two continents (the US and Australia) is invited to contact me or call exit code plus 618 8270 3548 on Australian Central Time (for Adelaide, SA) and roll up their sleeves. I do have an answer. The problem is to implement it. In Australia valiant efforts by the federal government will have as much effect here as the NCLB and Reading First had in the US. But hurry. I have been fighting single-handed for too long.
Believer| 6.22.10 @ 11:05AM
The solution is simple, get your kids out of public schools.
Believer| 6.23.10 @ 9:58AM
After the millions of articles on the financial and
educational problems of America, nothing has even remotely came close to fixing the problem.
In the home take charge and get your kids away from the TV and computer, Get your kids out of public school and stop voting for Democrats and Republicans. It's so obvious, We are now to stupid to vote.
Helen| 6.23.10 @ 11:32AM
Working with 5 completely unrelated reading teaching methods over a 5 year period I learnt that each of those very different excellent methodologies produced approximately the same percentage of proficient readers, however they weren't the same students. Take home message there is no one size fits all universal method except that which takes in the individual student characteristics and modifies the methodology accordingly. After all isn't that what good parents (& teachers) do all the time?
homeschool4boys| 7.6.10 @ 12:45AM
We love Redwall, Tom Sawyer, and Old Yeller...and my boys will beg me to read Farmer Boy from the Little House series, aloud to them. Great stories for boys.
homeschool4boys| 7.6.10 @ 12:54AM
Before we homeschooled when my son was in a 1st grade public school class, I observed the reading lesson. 4 groups of children rotating around the room doing busy work while 1 teacher sat with 6 children for reading which consisted of a Clifford (cartoon) book. My son was stuck on the word "hurry". I sat in amazement when the teacher tried to help him by saying, "look at the picture...what is Clifford doing? Is he running?...can you GUESS what that word is?"....I was thinking in my mind, 'tell him that "ur" says "er" and the "Y" is sometimes a vowel that says "e". Sadly, there was no phonics instruction. My younger son in a K class would bring home books filled with sight words and he was supposed to just read them to me. Who was teaching him these words?....ME. I was having to teach them to read even though they were at school all day. That was just one of the reasons we pulled them from the system. I do appreciate the skilled teachers who are able to help kids who cannot read and do what is necessary and right to help them.
maleni| 11.29.10 @ 7:55PM
I think that teachers need to work more in school that way our children will be better for the reading and writing
crosscubes| 7.20.12 @ 5:24AM
I read all the comments above, and replied to some; agreed with many. As I read, I thought about the school my mother attended. She was born in 1931; the oldest of a very large family in the Appalachian mountains. Yes, her dad was a coal miner. I don't remember how far she walked to school, but I think it was more than a mile; BTW, there weren't any sidewalks. I don't think there were any administrators in that one room school, grades 1through 8, where the older children helped the younger children with their lessons. Yes, her formal education was completed at the end of 8th grade. Her favorite subject was history, but she was also good at math. She was not allowed to do schoolwork at home; schoolwork was to be done at school, and there were chores at home. I'm sure she didn't eat junk food. They had a garden, chickens and a cow. Short by about 2 months of her 18th birthday, when my dad met her, she had three jobs; one was waitressing. She usually worked full time, but she also took some classes as an adult, and then many years after that, at age 50, she went to school full time and graduated with honors from the city college, with a major and a minor. Seems like that system was a lot better.