I think it’s parents responsibility too to help their kids to read not just school.

As a mother of 3 children, I started teaching them how to read once they turned 2 years old, early stimulation, started reading to them once they turned 18 months old and teaching them the alphabet with games, reading was our entertainment every day, no excuses, got their library cards at 4 years old, would take them to the library every week to get their favorite books they wanted to read, everyone read, read and read. We all got our books together as a family, made it look to my kids as a fun activity to do. They all started reading at 3 years of age, my 2 older boys were both reading at a 6th grade level when they started 1st grade, they were reading chapter books and their teachers were amazed to find out my children could read so well. I'm a trained and licensed Mexican clinical psychologist, and also always loved reading, at 62 I still read 2-3 books a week. All you need to do is install in your children a love for reading, for learning at a very young age, read together as a family, it takes patience and practice, but it is possible. Teachers can't do it all, it's our job as parents to start teaching our children to read. My 3 grown up children are now all successful college graduates, and they still enjoy reading books, the old fashion way. ❤

As a speech pathologist, we learned phonics/phonemic awareness to help kids read. I WISH EVERY school in the country would continue to do this! Screw site words

The problem is that schools no longer teach phonics, which is the basics.

I am a kindergarten teacher in Japan. Phonics is a program we have besides Reading and it works well. It definitely helps with the building steps of reading along with memorizing sight words. Parents should install phonics apps into their phones or tablets and children can play and learn at the same time through those apps.

Parents if you want your child to read well, read aloud to them early! There are kids with severe dyslexia but most just "bloom" late. It is important that they don't feel "dumb" because it takes longer. Anyone can learn to read, even dyslexics.

It’s heartbreaking 💔 when educators have to hide the fact that they’re teaching their students and that they’re learning. School districts should be ashamed. 😡

During the pandemic I witnessed how my kindergartener was being taught to read by memorizing sight words and guessing words based on pictures. I took him out and homeschooled him because i was so deeply disturbed.

My daughter is on the autism spectrum and homeschooled. She learned to read by using the McGuffey Readers. These readers are from the 1800s. She is an excellent reader and speller. Maybe it's time to go back to basics.

I’m so glad to hear many states and districts are reimplementing teaching reading with phonics. It made me so mad and still makes me mad that schools ever stopped using phonics in the first place.

People keep saying “it’s also the parents responsibility”. News flash: there are a lot of bad parents out there . Period. We need to offer ways for kids with bad parents to still have a fair shot at learning how to read. It’s not the childrens fault they have parents who won’t work with them on reading at home.

As a middle school teacher who experienced children who read on a 1st and 2nd grade level, I VOWED to make sure my children knew how to read before kindergarten, if I ever had children. Now, I have a 2 year old, and he knows all of his letters, their sounds, some sight words, and what his first/last name looks like. Now I'm considering what does it look like to teach PARENTS the super simple things that can help their children do the same. I honestly think that some parents sincerely don't know where to start or what to do when it comes to early literacy. For some, it may seem obvious but for others it truly isn't that natural of a thing.

As a teacher, I knew this. So, I taught my daughter how to read before she started school.

Retired senior here. My parents were country people. They left the rural South where they attended a tiny school.

Educational system messed up when they stopped teaching phonetically

well this makes a lot of my experiences as a college professor at a community college make waaaaay more sense. I knew a lot of the issues we saw in our remedial classes stemmed from environmental reasons (meaning unsupportive parents, for whatever their reason might be, some intentional, most being busy due to working 3 jobs and/or having a lingering disdain of education from their own school memories) and we knew that there were a few under performing schools in our area because of budget issues and thus students being unable to access the help they needed to succeed. We also knew that at that time the no child left behind act was shoving unprepared students out the door and into our halls which happily accepted them because they were just another US Department of Education loan paycheck and it didn't matter to the administration that these kids were blowing their one shot at an education that they weren't interested in to begin with but had come because they were told that was what was next (no conversation about trade schools, no conversation about gap years, little assistance other than some remedial classes and an overworked tutoring center). But i never thought that the schools had stopped doing the phonics lessons that were used when i was in school in the 80s. Seeing these kids having to come up with the word Cookie while looking at a picture suddenly makes so much of my experiences teaching make even more sense. We really have failed these kids.

I can’t believe that schools ditched phonics!!! Glad to hear that there are principals who care enough to do the best educational method for her students…even when the superintendent doesn’t agree. She deserves an award!

I really feel for these kids and, as a college English instructor mainly teaching freshman writing, I would agree this is a huge crisis. The amount of people who come into my classes barely even semi-literate is shocking. Ms. Pleasant is spot on; this needs to be dealt with super early. A number of comments here have also mentioned parents reading too and with kids and that's also crucial. Teachers can do tremendous work but it has to start at home. By the time they get to my end, it requires massive intervention, far more than I'm capable of.

I was so sad when I talked to the principal about my daughter's struggles with reading and he responded that the "pendulum had swung" and the district was using a whole language approach instead of comprehensive and systematic phonics. My daughter was even working one-on-one with a Reading First teacher for 30 minutes every day, but it was an absolute waste of time because all that was taught was the things that came naturally to her such as using context or inferring and basically guessing by looking at the picture. Homeschooling wasn't very popular at that time, but I knew I had to figure it out on my own. I am absolutely thrilled to hear that phonics is gaining popularity again.

Step number one.. dump those iPads and devices. Don’t let them near them bc they will easily replace what books are supposed to do for more natural acquisition of literacy. Step number two.. Do everything in your power to get kids to fall in love with books. Read to your kids the minute they come out of the womb. If you can, load your house with books.. either the ones you buy or the heaps of books you can get from the library.