New Book Available: Reading Science and the Crisis in Literacy
By Deborah Gorman go_see Pixabay CCO Creative Commons Nearly 40% of American students are not proficient in reading by the fourth grade. These poor readers will continue to underachieve and are at risk for dropping out entirely prior to high school graduation, because reading is the foundation for learning any subject including math and science. With over 14% of adults unable to read at a basic level and nearly 30% read at just a basic level, the United States continues to lag behind other developed nations in literacy. Since the 1950s when Rudolph Flesch called for a return to the teaching of reading by phonics, the subject has been controversial and debated by educators, publishers and parents. Programs such as No Child Left Behind, which relied heavily on mandated national testing have largely failed to reverse the trend because they do not get at the root of the problem. The reason so many students fail in reading is because the predominant method of teaching reading ...