Posted on 05/03/2026 2:31:29 PM PDT by DFG
A high school student in Philadelphia exposed how his classmates are struggling to read easy words and comprehend relatively simple sentences in a viral series of videos.
And he may have gotten in hot water for his trouble.
The videos, posted on TikTok, show the teenagers failing to read a sentence on a piece of paper while being filmed at the city’s Preparatory Charter School of Mathematics, Science, Technology and Careers.
In the clip, made by user “whatthevek” earlier this week, not a single high school-aged student was able to read the sentence, “She wore a silhouette of clothes that were extraordinary but somewhat gauche.”
He made a follow-up video a day later in which the students were apparently unable to make sense of the sentence, “The colonel asked the choir to accommodate the governor’s schedule.”
The two videos racked up a combined 1.7 million likes and thousands of comments, but “whatthevek” later claimed he wouldn’t be making a third due to threats from authorities at Prep Charter.
“I would post a part three, but the school board is trying to expel me, stop me from going to prom, and stop me from walking at graduation. I don’t know chat,” he wrote in an Instagram story on Friday.
South Philly-based Prep Charter, one of the most diverse schools in the state, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
State test scores show that just 53% of students at the school tested proficient in reading, and just 19% were proficient in math.
The video has sparked outrage, with many calling out the parents as well as the school.
“Yo late Gen Xers and older Millennials have failed their kids so badly. How can you neglect your child so badly, you don’t make sure they can read?!” one X user wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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I was a hardcore bookworm growing up. But since I was only reading them, my mispronunciations of many words whose meaning I understood perfectly well was a frequent source of hilarity at the dinner table when I tried to use them in conversation.
When I was an elementary school they gave us a list of words to lookup in the dictionary every day. It was a half hour exercise where we would write down on paper the meaning listed in the dictionary. I learned a lot of words that way.
Then there’s Lord Byron’s “Apostrophe to the Ocean” (which has 8 apostrophes in 7 stanzas).
Black parents should be outraged. Their kids are entering the labor force with one arm tied behind their backs. Time for you parents to get involved, attended Board meetings, PTA meetings, and city council meetings and demanding a performance-based education for your kids.
You’d think people with apostrophes in their names should be able to read words containing apostrophes.
I knew it by fourth or fifth grade, because of this:
The Silhouette was one of the cars released in the 1968 Hot Wheels series, also known as the “The Sweet Sixteen”. Despite its sleek and futuristic 1960’s design, it is considered the least valuable Hot Wheels car of the 1968 year because there were so many produced. The Cars were packaged with a ‘Collector’s Button’.
The democrats want dumb people to manipulate.
The republicans want bribes like Jeb Bush from Florida who took a $10 million bribe from Pearson publishing to have the Florida taxpayers buy Common Core books which Bill Gates was one of those pushing the revisionist history and the terrible math and reading.
Same here. There are still many words that I can spell and use in context but have no idea how to pronounce.
Thanks for the explanation, I'm 75 and have never read or heard the expression silhouette of clothes before.
the young man needs to have the school board and school staff try to read the sentence, “GFY”. then hightail it to an attorney. His educational history is at stake.
The article did not indicate the reader had to explain the sentence. The sentence was to be read. Don’t go making excuses for students being idiots.
Is is for kids who grew up on McGuffey readers.
I read that they are again teaching cursive writing. This, after over twelve years of not teaching it.
As far as the reading of unfamiliar or even familiar words, they need to bring back phonics. I can still hear teachers and parents saying “sound it out”. For that, I assume many current teachers would also need to be taught.
Please don't ask us to dishonor the tradition begun in 1996.
Notice I made the same error as my colleagues. For the sake of a cheap gag. Reading the posts would make us set aside other things in our hectic lives saving America.
We’re about the same age.
I thought of that song, too. Thanks for the link.
I am sorry but that is a laziness too far.
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