A December 10, 2024 Wall Street Journal article reflected on the inadequacies of America's students ("In a Test of Adult Know-How, America Comes Up Short The least-educated workers are falling behind on basic skills such as reading a thermometer and planning a trip.") To explain the problem with America's students' literacy, look to early-life parenting. When first read to and then with as toddlers, almost all children will learn to read on their own since the child's mind has the innate ability to induct the nature of reading just as it does the language grammar of the nation into which they are born. No formal teaching of reading is needed. But, sadly, some children do not experience a "good-enough" (not perfect!) parenting. Culture matters too, whether parents prize education and achievement, but these are not popular political talking points. Nor should teachers be expected to re-parent their students.
A Psychologist's Thoughts on Clinical Practice, Behavior, and Life
On American Children's Illiteracy and More
Why There Are Now More Books Being Published But Fewer Readers
One reason might be the ease of self-publishing with many considering their life story and imagined fantasy of value to a wider public, and another being the generally poor state of public education in which literacy is no longer considered the minimal requirement for high school graduation.
The encouragement of reading by parents may also be less prevalent with some parents failing to read first to and then with their toddlers, this being a time when the child can naturally learn reading since the mind has an inherent capacity to induct the nature of reading just as it does the grammatical structure of the language of the nation into which they are born.
A smaller factor, I believe, is that reading involves a loss of self-control while immersed in the written words which is unconsciously scary for anxious youth. I having known good readers who never read, preferring video game play which is heavily obsessive-compulsive, one of the mind's natural ways to reduce anxiety and thus powerfully motivating.
Teaching Reading in the Failing Public Schools
An article in the June 23, 2023 issue of The Wall Street Journal ("Phonics finally Gets Its Due in New York. It took the city's education bureaucracy 20 years to recognize that the Success Academy approach works") described the shocking failure of the public school's ability to teach reading. Yet the blame is not theirs alone since if parents read first to and then with their toddlers, almost all children would be reading simple books by the time they entered kindergarten. And if all parents explained their directives (apart from emergency situations) rather than saying, "Do it because I say so," their cognitive development would be further enhanced since not providing explanation depresses the development of both the capacity for abstract thinking and of intrinsic motivation ("motivation which is inherent in information processing and action," as the noted psychologist, Joseph McVicker Hunt, stated in his 1960s paper). Hunt's work was a major influence in beginning the Head Start program. Learning and its love begin at home. Sadly, these no-cost education remedies are far from universal.
Children and Reading
Children have the genetically ingrained capacity to induct the grammar of their native language. Thus does a child born in Germany naturally learn to speak German and a child born in Italy naturally learn to speak Italian. This has been known by psychologists for many years. Similarly, the brain has the ingrained capacity to induct the nature of reading, but only if the child is first read to and then with by a parent when they are a toddler. Given this interaction, most children will be reading simple books by the time they begin kindergarten. While the public education system is generally poor at teaching children with difficulties, attempting to paper-over their inadequacies with trumpeted pronouncements, teachers cannot be expected to take the place of children who have failed to receive the "good-enough" parenting that is the birthright of all children. Thus many children are unable to read and unready to learn, or even cognizant of basic courtesy as teachers complain. Nuff said.
Why Many Children Can't Read
That many children can't read shouldn't be happening since this ability is innate and learning it presents no greater difficulty than learning to eat with a spoon. Why it does is the unacknowledged "Elephant in the Room," and not the fault of teachers but of parents.
A child naturally learns the language of their country of birth. Thus one born in the U.S.A. learns English and one born in Germany learns German and the same for other countries. They accomplish this not by memorizing all combinations of words which is impossible, but by inducting the grammatical structure of their language, a task for which the human brain is genetically programmed at birth.
Thus if parents first read to and then with their toddler beginning at two years of age, aiding the reading learning process by moving their finger along the printed line, their child will read simple books upon beginning kindergarten. Not all children but nearly all, provided that they are experiencing a "good-enough" parenting since its lack can create psychological difficulties affecting learning.