The cause of American illiteracy isn't COVID, 'confusing teaching methods', 'implicit biases', 'lack of consistent access to reading' [whatever that means], or smartphones.
Notice what The Stern Center, Reading is Fundamental, The Reading Team, The National Literacy Institute, and all the other insightless saviorists don't tell you: the cause of American illiteracy is parental neglect. That's it. It's what it always has been and what it always will be. To quote the brilliant child psychologist Alice Miller, “Sparing the parents is our supreme law.” Parental neglect is actionable. Legislation exists to prosecute illiteracy as child endangerment, but mawkish blame-games will always forestall this.
American illiteracy isn't just a mental health issue, it's a national security threat.
Kids have to fix this problem on their own - and they're perfectly capable of doing so.
Illiteracy is just an engineering problem and the easiest way out of it is up.
Overhead in Bed turns the simple act of reading upside down.
Read MoreKids who can't read are traumatized by parental neglect.
Parents who send their kids off to school when they're unable to read at a basic level are condemning them to a life of failure and mediocrity.
The 4th grade seems to be an inflection point. This is when all the fretful researchers say that catching up becomes overwhelming. The oft-cited stat is that two-thirds of students who cannot read at grade level by then will end up on welfare or in prison. 80% of America's incarcerated are semi-literate.
If there were a constitutional right to literacy, neglectful parents could be held accountable for child-endangerment, which isn't all that bad of an idea.
Read MoreBut even more than these horrors, the realization that many, if not most, of my students were illiterate and would likely always remain so, underlined my sense of futility. The achievement gap is a relative measurement, pertaining to comparisons between groups. Illiteracy is absolute and personal. If you can’t read, what does it matter who can? If some new age of social utopia dawned tomorrow, you’d still be working at its gas station.
Read More“It's sometimes said that while kids leave school in the 9th grade, they actually drop out in 4th. Because by 4th grade, this kid knows something no adult will admit: it's game over." ~ Ralph Smith, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Read MoreSelected comments from the Guardian’s Saturday, 11may19, article, “How do you turn kids into bookworms?”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/11/how-do-you-turn-kids-into-bookworms-all-10-childrens-laureates-share-their-tips
Reading's over-rated, like Shakespeare's women (to quote Martin Amis). I've been a massive reader all my life which has been a disaster for me. I was of the Sinclair Spectrum/BBC Micro generation and I'd have been much, much better off spending my adolescence playing video games. Reading a lot has given me a certain ease with words which is highly prized by bourgeois society and enabled me to do very well in formal education, but again it would have done much more good to hang out in bus shelters talking to girls and drinking vodka. When I was about eleven one of my teachers said I spent too much time reading and should do something creative, which completely fucking enraged me at the time - it seemed downright blasphemous. But she was absolutely right. – bluefinch
Read MoreYou’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child. ~ Dr. Seuss
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Parking a kid in front of Sesame Street doesn’t teach reading proficiency, and it's not a teacher's job to teach a kid how to read.
It's a parent's job to teach their kid how to read. The parent is the first teacher, and the teaching of reading as a life-skill is as critical as explaining fire, gravity, how to cross the street and how not to drown.
Read MoreFor a kid who harbors a dislike for the act of reading, if you make it easier for him, then it's no longer such an odious chore. Overhead in Bed is remedial: it’s an overhaul.
Read More from, https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-literacy-america
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2/3rds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70% of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level. [Write Express Corporation, "Literacy Statistics", Begin to Read, February 24, 2015]
1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read. [WriteExpress Corporation. "Literacy Statistics", Begin to Read, April 16, 2014]
Students who don't read proficiently by the 3rd grade are 4 times likelier to drop out of school. [The Annie E. Casey Foundation, "Students Who Don’t Read Well in Third Grade Are More Likely to Drop Out or Fail to Finish High School", Accessed February 25, 2015]
Read More from an Intercept (Jeremy Scahill) interview with Alfred McCoy, author of “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.”
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We speak of crumbling U.S. infrastructure, one thing that nobody talks about very seriously in a sustained way is the intellectual infrastructure of the country. The OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the rich countries club, conducts these tests every couple years, the PISA tests, and they test 15-year-olds. In the latest rounds of tests, Shanghai students have come number one in math, science, and literacy.
Read Morefrom, http://www.readfaster.com/education_stats.asp#readingstatistics
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33% of children in California will not finish high school. [Reference: California Department of Education]
Disadvantaged students in the first grade have a vocabulary that is approximately half that of an advantaged student. [Reference: Richard Riley, Former Secretary of Education]
It is estimated that more than $2 billion is spent each year on students who repeat a grade because they have reading problems. [Reference: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]
Read More from a Harper Collins Childrens Books compilation:
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Reading to a child in an interactive style raises his or her IQ by over 6 points. [readfaster.com/education_stats.asp#readingstatistics]
Daily reading to children puts them almost 1 year ahead of those who are not being read to. [theage.com.au/national/proof-of-obenefits-of-reading-to-children-20130302-2fd7s.html]
Children without basic literacy skills when they enter school are 3-4 times more likely to drop out later. [readfaster.com/education_stats.asp#readingstatistics]
For the majority of young people, enthusiastic and habitual reading is the single most predictive personal habit for the ability to achieve desirable life outcomes. [slideshare.net/ThroughtheMagicDoor/growing-a-readingculturereport?qid=373d9151-a57c-431e-8292-54d87111623&v=qf1&b=&from_search=3]
Read MoreIn Chris Hedges' 2009 critique of American culture, "Empire of Illusion - The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle", he cites the National Institute for Literacy, the National Center for Adult Literacy, The Literacy Company, and the U.S. Census Bureau:
"Functional literacy in North America is epidemic. There are 7 million illiterate Americans. Another 27 million are unable to read well enough to complete a job application, and 30 million can't read a simple sentence.
Read MoreA room without books is like a body without a soul. ~ Cicero
It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. ~ William Gladstone, Prime Minister UK
Books make the home.
Some girls watched Beauty and the Beast and wanted the prince. I watched it and wanted the library.
Read Morefrom the National Endowment for the Arts' Office of Research and Analysis' report, "To Read or Not to Read, A Question of National Consequence", Research Report #47, November, 2007
https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/ToRead.pdf
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The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming. Although there has been measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level, all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years. There is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates. These negative trends have more than literary importance.
Read More“Read on. Get on.” is a British reading-encouragement program.
from its sponsors:
"If children don’t get ahead in reading early on, the chances are they won’t flourish later on, which is why the Read On. Get On. campaign is so important. When I look back on my childhood, some of my fondest memories are of reading with my dad or mum. Reading is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child. When you read a book it sends you into a magical world. Join me in the Read On. Get On. campaign and read to your kids for just 10 minutes a day to help Britain ensure all children can read well by the time they are 11 years old.” ~ David Williams
Read MoreReading. It's our only hope.
You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it. ~ Adrienne Rich
Reading is not optional. ~ Walter Dean Myers
Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.
All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk. ~ Lemony Snicket
A library is a hospital for the mind.
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