ABC’s of America’s Reading Crisis

Letter to Ephesians: Tomie dePaola once said, “If you can read you can learn anything about everything & everything about anything”? Yet, studies unfailingly show Americans are failing in their reading tests, suggesting they can’t learn anything about everything. Can anyone recall the 3-Rs?

Just watch the telly or surf the internet as further proof of the pathetic state of USA’s educational system. As Sam Sorbo’s recent op ed on Fox News online our “plummeing litreracy rates” are taking place while spending records are being broken. He urges the progressive woke culture that’s presided over this “crisis in reading” needs to be chucked, along with their LGBTQIA++ alphabet. But, finger pointing alone ain’t gonna make the pig fly again either. Sorbo basically says we need to go back to the basics of learning how to read. Start with the environment: “Instead of sending our healthy children into institutions that mimic prisons, revert back to trusting chilren’s intuitive ... natural drive to learn.”

Parental involvement is key, too, Sorbo says, as are standards & enforcing accountability. “If you can’t read above 8th-grade level, you don’t graduate,” he opines. And, oh, “No more awards for mediocrity. Show kids that effort matters, not just feelings.” Meanwhile, “Money should flow to classrooms, textbooks, tutors, coaches – not more diversity officers ... [or] superfluous administrators.” There’s more to it than that of course. But, where do you start to learn about history let alone problem solving, but at the beginning of a good book?

Davd Soul