Thank God I learned to read in the early ‘70s. My old school teacher, Mrs. Whitaker, made me sound the words out. I deciphered the ‘code’ quickly and NEVER looked back. Growing up in an intellectual family didn’t hurt, either.
Fast forward forty years, I’m a teacher of at-risk kids (gangs, victims of sex trafficking, you name it...) Most of my teens read at a third grade level if at all.
The handful that do read have a better chance at turning their lives around. The ones that don’t — they’re nihilistic and hopeless.
Reading is such a key to education, problems with reading are an obvious cause of nearly every other issue with students that act out and drop out.
By second or third grade readers are off and running, those that cannot read are so embarrassed they begin act out to divert attention. Students that cannot read cannot succeed at any other subject, even math is tough if you cannot read the directions. At a certain point the student that cannot read to their grade level just gives up and stops trying.
Yet schools, and many teachers act as though the issues with school are all separate issues to be dealt with. Reading has to be a priority and it doesn’t seem to be treated that way by most educators. They say it is critical, but their actions don’t show that they believe it.