I found this podcast from this reddit-logo post:

I subbed today for a 7th and 8th grade teacher. I’m not exaggerating when I say at least 50% of the students were at a 2nd grade reading level. The students were to spend the class time filling out an “all about me” worksheet, what’s your name, favorite color, favorite food etc. I was asked 20 times today “what is this word?”. Movie. Excited. Trait. “How do I spell race car driver?”

I've only listened to one episode so far, but it's really well produced, seems well-researched and very well put together.

From what I gather so far, the ways that the American public school system "teaches" kids how to read is not only completely wrong, but actually saddles them bad habits which fundamentally hinder their reading comprehension.

A huge swath of American adults are functionally illiterate, and I think I'm starting to understand why.

  • sammer510 [none/use name]
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    edit-2
    11 months ago

    This is really fascinating stuff. It explains a lot of things I've noticed about other people in my life I've known who are poor readers. I've always been a great reader for as long as I can remember, had parents who helped teach me to read and read with me and all that which can help a lot. The "incorrect" way that school are teaching to kids is to basically guess what words means instead of trying to memorize the phonetic pronunciation of individual words to commit them to memory. I remember in high school there being activities where we would go around the room and different students would read different parts of like a book or textbook out loud. And as someone lucky enough to have learned how to read well, I was always flabbergasted when I would hear some people read. I'd be reading along in the book and thinking "what the fuck, they're saying words that aren't even on this page. How is this even possible to mess up this badly that you're not just mispronouncing words you're literally inserting words out of nowhere" and the research would suggest that's its because they were literally just reading the first part of the word and guessing the rest of it. Zero, like, base line understanding of what letter combinations make what sounds. No wonder some people hate reading it's basically playing a guessing game 😳