40% of 4th graders cannot read in 2026
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Anonymous
I am the op. No disagreement on the part in bold; mine are ages 16 and 17 and I STILL occasionally read to them before bed; both are performing phenomenally in academics. At this stage, reading to them is probably more of a parental bonding exercise than of any academic benefit. Nevertheless, as another has previously stated: our schools must also be capable of teaching basic literacy to all; including children who don’t have a parent to read to them. Our public education system has done so in the past. Why has it failed throughout 2025 and into 2026? |
Anonymous
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Yup, videos killed the reading stars. Many teachers, parents, and nannies sit kids in front of screens “ to learn by themselves” without thinking the damage they do and how difficult the remediation is.
There are parents who did an excellent job playing and reading to their young kids daily, in a loving way. |
Anonymous
You appear to be an AI chat-bot, PP. Please delete yourself. Actual humans are discussing an actual human issue here. |
Anonymous
Yes, that was exactly our experience. Just reading to kids doesn't work for all kids! I did everything that other parents and teachers told us to do. We read to our kid every single night... basically from birth. We practiced reading every night in kindergarten with the leveled books that were sent home and continued with bedtime reading and library trips. I trusted our non-FARMS, upper middle class public to teach phonics and reading. If my crappy public elementary managed to make a reader out of me back in the 90s, our well-funded public could teach my kid to read and write, right? I also trusted our home environment - we have hundreds of books, we model reading ourselves, and I am a former middle school English teacher and have an MA in English Lit. Fall of 1st grade, I realized that DS wasn't reading. He was memorizing and guessing. He was being taught to guess, using three-cueing! I perused DCUM, purchased a phonics based reading system, and over a couple of month, DS learned to read. In 2nd grade, I realized that DS had no idea how to write or spell. Handwriting was awful. He had been taught a bunch of BS terms like "metacognition" and "schema," but had no idea what a noun or verb was, and couldn't answer basic plot questions on paper. So.... we fixed all of this, but only because I was paying attention and because I had the means (money, education, and motivation) to be able to do it. I think all the PPs are correct. It is Lucy Calkins AND also EdTech. Luckily for us/unfortunately for the rest, the 40% is mostly the kids you would expect. Low income, inner city, parents who do not read or have books at home. The rest of us are supplementing at home, hiring tutors, and sending kids to centers, so they are still testing at grade level or above. This is an open secret I didn't know about until 2nd grade. |
Anonymous
2012 |
Anonymous
As an immigrant teacher I’m SO happy to not have been raised in this US schooling system. Now that I’m seeing firsthand these effects I’m making a move out of US so my kids can have an advantage over their peers. They’ll come back just in time to accrue AP credits maybe the last two Hs Years and secure college scholarships because of their higher rigor and preparation compared to the average American student. |
Anonymous
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Current 6th-9th graders were all taught to read and write using Lucy Calkins. That program has huge issues and it's negative effects will last a very long time.
Current 5th-6th graders also missed key years of education when schools were closed for COVID and teaching was only virtual. Current 5th graders (so the 4th grade scores from last year) had virtual kindergarten. I'm completely unsurprised that they have weaker reading skills. Current 4th graders had many kids who missed preschool entirely because schools were closed, plus kindergarten was masked and there were still lots of COVID interruptions. I'd be unsurprised if there are still issues. Schools now are explicitly teaching phonics and that's a good thing, but we have a large cohort of kids going through the system right now who have major gaps. |
Anonymous
+1, although I think the scores the video is going off are from current sixth graders (4th grade NWEP scores from the spring of '23-'24), but that group got even more virtual school so the effect is stronger. I think it'll take another cycle, at least, to tell how much of this is COVID. Hopefully that's it and it's only one group of students we failed quite so miserably. |
Anonymous
Literacy scores started dropping well before Covid. |
Anonymous
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People should look at what Mississippi has done. Yes, Mississippi. They went from having the worst literacy rates in the country for 4th graders to among the nation's highest scores. Among the things they do is the mandatory retention of 3rd graders who do not pass the reading tests. They raised expectations, gave teachers resources and support, and followed through. Their results have been outstanding. So it's not hopeless out there.
The problem really is horrible school boards and ever diminishing expectations. Try holding back a 3rd grader in the DC area because they can't read at grade level. It never happens. The norm in this area is to pass everyone all the way through high school regardless of their proficiency in reading or math. Which is why we have so many unprepared students graduating from DC area schools. It's sad. |
Anonymous
Look around 2013-2017, before the pandemic began. |
Anonymous
But you are not READING the data, which is exactly my point. 🙄 |
Anonymous
Not for kids with dyslexia, which is about 15% of the population. |
Anonymous
Before COVID were the Lucy Calkins years. That was terrible reading instruction that has been proven to be ineffective and harmful. Then there was COVID with big instruction gaps. Now we have phonics instruction in schools, but the kids with gaps from LC and COVID or both are still moving through the system. |
Anonymous
Read up in the harm caused by the Lucy Caulkins curriculum. |