Why 65 Percent of Fourth Graders Can't Really Read

PJMedia ^ | FEBRUARY 12, 2023 | RICK MORAN

[george76]

230,000 children who failed to show up for class when public schools reopened after the pandemic. It’s a tragedy without parallel in American history as many of the no-shows are very young — K through 3rd grade. Critical skills learned in early education were not taught to these kids, who are now hopelessly behind.

...

Consider the fact that 65% of American fourth-grade students can barely read. This is a result of a radical shift to a new way of teaching children how to read.

What was wrong with the old way? Well, it was old.

...

What exactly are these teachers doing to children?

...

After a couple of decades of teaching reading this way with abysmal results, you’d think even a leftist would throw in the towel and go back to what worked before. Not on your life. That would mean the critics who have been railing against this travesty of education were right. And, as we know, leftists would rather blow up the country than admit anything they do causes more harm than good.

[Jaysin]

Wow! Very true.

There was a time when education actually meant something.

[Vermont Lt]

If they could read in Spanish by first grade, at least that indicated someone worked with them.

But, these kids get no help at home.

[Truthsearcher]

Why? The answer is easy, they have parents who don’t care if they can read.

[Varda]

I did’nt say a thing about public schools. I never used them. For the better private schools though, parents are super involved. They’d never leave their kids education totally in the hands of any teacher much less a public school one. The parents weren’t lazy and weren’t dumb.

[This_Dude]

You are clearly not a gamer. There’s more reading in an average game than the Bible. You’re talking hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours of content of nearly constant reading.

And I don’t see how anyone uses the internet without the ability to read. Kind of impossible.

[Jaysin]

“The public school system is way past its prime.”

Thank the DOE

more govt = more problems.

As history has proven over and over again

[LibertarianLiz]

I think that this is also why "symbols", instead of written words, are being used everywhere. Now, this is a problem for me because I am not good at symbols. I can, however, read.

My hubby will occasionally have to tell me what a symbol means; and, I will always ask "why, does it mean that?". I ask that because I can see no logical connection between the word and the symbol.

[aspasia]

Congratulations! You cared for your children.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Yes the DOE should have been shutdown long ago.

[fieldmarshaldj]

It’s OK, they’re doing what’s most important: Making them learn the self-proclaimed “pronouns” of the degenerate Sodomites or Tranny “teachers” that are indoctrinating them.

[Jaysin]

Should have never been created to begin with.....

[ronnie raygun]

Because teachers are still spending covid checks

[KC_for_Freedom]

The true correllation between parents and education is how valuable parrents believe education is. In our school district we tested incoming kids in math ability. There were three groups. Those who were placed in Geometry as freshmen, those who were place in normal Algebra as freshmen, and those who were placed in individual study to master Adding through Percentage problems.

They came from distinct neighborhoods. The Geometry classes had extremely wealthy parents. The Algebra kids had middle class parents, and the weak math students had blue collar parents (or likely only one adult to the household). It was not hard to see how this happened. The wealthy kids neighborhood school gave pages of homework each night. The middle class kids had maybe a page of problems each night and the blue collar kids got little homework and were not held accountable for any they were assigned.

BTW, I would say that race had little to do with this, but the district had about one third minority kids. Most of them were not living in the very wealthy neighborhood. (I lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods myself, but we still had much more wealth than most of the country — we lived in the SF BAy area — for a partial reference)

There were minorities in the middle class comunities and the blue collar communities but at school there was little divisive behavior. When I taught in the catch up math class I had parental assistants — and I had to teach them how to explain some of the more difficult problems. There were also many kids who came from one background and made it into a higher or lower class level, High achievers could go as far as they wanted in the high school I am talking about.

One last comment, when we went into a period of layoffs, I was laid off. The union and the school district went entirely by seniority. So my 9 years was not enough. (They laid off through 12 years of teachers.) I felt that I was doing OK, and was forced to go back to Aerospace Engineering. I really liked teaching but I could not buck seniority but I do know that the Teacher’s Union does not prioritize the kid’s education or the kid’s school experience.

[JSM_Liberty]

“And I don’t see how anyone uses the internet without the ability to read. Kind of impossible.”

You don’t do much reading when you are scrolling through Instagram pictures and TikTok videos and touching the “like” icon.

[rdl6989]

Lol!!!!

[HKMk23]

When pictorial books, which are little more than glorified comic strips, like “Dog Man” are considered “reading,” ...

Yeah.

My 4th Grader was amused by them.
For “reading” she went through the Percy Jackson series.
Now, in 5th Grade, she’s taking on “Harry Potter.”

For actual culture, we’ve been on a tour through Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

[KC_for_Freedom]

I agree with you that video games can have a positive effect on reading. In my day it was Comic books, and they were deliberately written with standard language and grammer. (BTW this is true for Spanish Language comics too, sometimes the only books that kids read.) But it is also true that cell phones and many video games are not making use of proper language and very little syntax, ( u c what I mean?)

I rate cell phones as the biggest problem, because in HS the kids are districted all the time by their phones.

The internet is both a blessing and a curse, if you can have the world of facts at your fingertips, why take the trouble to commit anything to memory? On the other hand, how can we learn when over half the internet if misleading or outright pursuasion?

[Tired of Taxes]

Copying and pasting what I just posted on another thread:

It’s very easy for children to learn to read.

Age 1-3, a child can learn to read and spell words.

By 5 or 6, a child can read chapter books. (One of mine could read my old college textbooks at age 4. I had to watch what he got his hands on.)

Some kids might delay reading until later, but they catch up and move ahead when they’re ready.

My children never went to school until college. School is the reason some kids can’t read well.*

A child should enjoy reading. Schools teach that reading is homework.

* Adding: Reading has to start at home.

[Elsie]

Consider the fact that 65% of American fourth-grade students can barely read.

Then let's read TO them!!

---

 

 

What kind of a people are we;

that we allow men dressed in womens clothes

to pervert the minds of little children?

---

 

 

But there IS hope!!!

 

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

  9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:
      Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

 

 

If you could NOT change, you would be in most pitiful shape...

---

---

[StAnDeliver]

The Big Tobacco lawsuit paradigm is going to be used against the medical community that is pimping transitioning to kids, so there is no reason that same paradigm cannot be used against Big School. None.