Half of Americans can’t read

I have learnt to read other languages.

languages that basically use the same letters like French and German are relatively simple.

Spanish I adore because it is a genuinely phonetic language. It has very clear rules about what sound each letter makes and those rules aren’t broken really.

i also learned Arabic for a while which was uses a completely different alphabet but is still mostly phonetic.

there are also languages like Chinese that are not phonetic at all. The symbols used for writing Chinese are pictures representing the meaning of the words. So for example the Chinese ideogram for Ren which means person or people is a little stick figure.

you can’t use phonics to learn written Chinese.

English is a really odd language because it’s partially phonetic but has so, so many exceptions largely because it’s taken words from so many languages and also spelling fossilised a few centuries ago and lots of words aren’t pronounced like that any more.

so learning phonics will get many children started on the road to reading but it’s not actually enough to get full mastery of English, the exceptions and common words that are not phonetically spelt need to be learnt.

most adults do not read using phonetics unless it’s a new word and even then they are more likely to compare it to words they already know.

I have to read Arabic slowly a Character at a time and it’s frustratingly slow. When I get to the point I can recognise whole words (even simple ones like you or he) I speed up massively

"Many other posters have agreed they also learned it."

Really? And on which threads were these comments?

On this thread there appears to have only been one poster apart from yourself who has said that they learnt Latin at a state primary school.

I went to school in a city of, then, around 120,000 people. I believe that I can confidently say that no junior school in the city taught Latin.

"I’m not quite sure why you have such a bee in your bonnet about this."

To be quite frank, because you are extrapolating from your own personal experience, shall we call it "anecdata", and presenting your own personal story as though it was data.

If you had simply said, "Well, I was taught Latin at my state junior school" then that would be totally believable.

In contrast, saying "Latin was very common in state and private primaries." without anything to back it up other than that you yourself studied Latin at a state junior school, is rather a bold statement to make without being able to back it up.

Why did you use the title then?

How can you say that half can’t read when you mean they didn’t learn in the traditional but can still read even if it’s in a more clunky way. Do you really believe, half can’t read road signs, emails, WhatsApp messages, TikTok posts?

Latin wasn’t generally taught in state primary schools in the 1950s and 1960s, let alone the seventies - even in my private, Catholic junior school, where we used Latin on a daily basis for worship, there was no formal instruction in the language.

I (66) didn't do Latin as a set subject but it was part of our English lessons in secondary school and at A level a whole part of the curriculum was dedicated to learning the etymology of words, so we did a term of basic Latin, Greek and Old High German.

This. I learned this way and was reading at 3. I can definitely read.

I’m an American. Most schools here use an approach that combines phonics and whole word, with the mix varied by age and aptitude.

https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/the-science-of-reading-vs-balanced-literacy-the-history-of-the-reading-wars

My kids are in their mid 20s and this is how they were taught.

Your thread title is goady and offensive, by the way.

I think a combination of phonics and whole word teaching (as there are so many irregular words in the English language) is best but with more emphasis on phonics at first. Early years phonics led reading books are very repetitive and boring because the words, which can be used, are limited.
The cat sat on the mat. - phonics led
The cat sat on the carpet, - more interesting and 'guessable', although the ar sound is taught quite early on so not the best example.
My father taught me to read a bit before I went to school using whole words written in capital letters ( a BIG no no) and it didn't do me any harm, as I soon adapted to the school system, but I expect it also depends on intelligence.
I took Latin to A level; it's such a big help in understanding the grammatical construction of sentences and the usage of correct tenses, it's a pity the teaching of it is dying out,
My pet hate at the moment is trying to stop my grandson saying 'brang' instead of brought..

Me too, back in the 80's. The school did fancy itself though as it had been a Grammar until the system was stopped in our area.

I'm also having childhood flashbacks to those Hooked on Phonics ads.

The issue with these sorts of things - or answering if America has fixed it - is it treats the US education as if it's a unified whole when nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only does each state have its own rules, so can each county, each city and town, each school district, each school within the same school district can have different rules from age cut offs and requirements to start through to requirements to graduate.

The different approaches are sometimes framed as political. I find people of any political leaning tend to prefer the approach they used or can be explained why the changes have been made. Phonics in some parts of the US is pinned as conservative in part because it's associated with certain centuries old Christian curriculums used back in the one room schoolhouse days, whereas in others, whole word is considered the conservative approach because that's the books they've been using for decades so phonics is treated as new/progressive. It isn't consistent.

It's more a follow the money situation. We've seen time and again individuals and groups with money getting into US schools and basically bribing them to do things their way -- and when in most states you have a system where school funding is based on local property taxes so poorer areas get less funding, you can see how those financial incentives happen even with the best of intentions. I mean, look at Bill Gates and how his love of the Big History idea changed how history was taught across many parts of the US, even with its poor results. Both whole word and modern phonics came in through groups selling programs to solve school issues both in academics and in budget.

IME, the UK has this issue, but to a far lesser extent at the school level compared to the US - the funding structures are very different. There is the issue in UK stats where literacy is defined based on years of formal education rather than actual literacy, I guess that's easier to track, so it's hard to say how we're really doing.

I can't remember how I was taught initially in much detail, though what I can recall was a mix of phonics and word chunks. I can remember studying etymology in English around word origins and the impact on spelling and how that can help show what the word means.

just like there are different ways of learning maths, i see some super cool abacus type tricks on you tube of kids adding up and multiplying with fast finger twitching called ANZAN, there are different ways of learning how to read.
whole word was popular and common in the 80's, and even now memorizing the 100 "common words" encouraged in most schools is an example of whole word.
the average reading age of most american adults is between 12-14, the average reading age of most UK citizens is estimated (google work here) to be between the age of 9-11 (i'm actually shocked by this).
reading is multi step and involved several physical and cognitive skills, reading is NOT the same as comprehension.
if you are interested in the topic there's lots of info out there.
phonics is fine, it's not the be all end all, and it's not for everyone. even having learned phonics it doesn't help you know what an unfamiliar word means (people still need dictionaries) and it doesn't help with reading complex topics.

I learned using ITA back in the 70's so its a wonder any Gen X who were taught with that learned to read anything at all! Bascially we had to learn twice.

I can still read ITA though, I think its a skill you never lose!

I did Latin at school for O Level. Comprehensive school.

Didn’t learn to read via phonics either but whole word. I remember one day it just clicked and I could read.

Agreed. School in mid 70s onwards. It’s my mother’s generation, who learned Latin.

Phonics doesn't suit every child. My eldest DD is quite dyslexic and had a nightmare with phonics. I was taught to read using whole word/flashcards very quickly and I suspect phonics wouldn't have been as effective for me.

I’ve got two nephews who live in NYC who are the same age as my daughters and when they were little I was always shocked at their inability to read. They used the whole word method and were pretty much guessing. My dh, who grew up there doesn’t know any of the lower case letters or sounds and says loads of sounds incorrectly because he says that they are the same. . Most notably ‘th’ and ‘t’. When our dc were learning to read he really struggled with phonics despite being clever and wanting to be involved.

I went to an American school in the 80s and they were obsessed with phonics. My older brother had been taught to read in the UK and didn't do any phonics. So I don't think they were behind us. He was an excellent reader and speller though.

Phonics is only one tool in learning to read and doesn't work for everyone.

Agreed. My dd is dyslexic. We only found out 6 months ago in year 13. She got on ok with phonics. But she also is better at whole word recognition. Interesting. I never learned phonics. But can’t see it would have been of much use to me. I could read a newspaper age 3. I’m sure I didn’t understand the articles though.

The author of this article was Richard Littlejohn. It was published in 2012.

I did mention that " I'm not in any way endorsing the attitudes of this columnist,"

Hooked on Phonics worked for me! 🤦🏻‍♀️😉

I've listened to this podcast and it's depressing AF. Like previous OPs I also think no child left behind is part of the issue here.

I don't know how I was taught to read. But I went to montessori pre school at about 4, and my DM assured me that I read fairly fluently six months later. By the time I changed school, at six, to a standard primary school in west Cornwall, my reading age was about eight.

My child is learning phonics and sight words. I’m hoping one will help if the other doesn’t!

I have successfully blocked out most of my childhood memories but funnily enough I can quite clearly conjure up the pictures of me sitting in class as a 5 year old and the learning to read lessons. Probably because I was terrified I wouldn't be able to ever learn to read. This was nearly 70 years ago and I can remember the pressure I felt. Partly because as the youngest of 3 the expectations on me to follow in my siblings footsteps was immense.

In the event I was fine and generally had a reading age assessed as exceptionally good for my age. But I don't think I've ever taken the ability to read for granted. It still fills me with a certain awe that I can actually translate these funny scrawlings into words that actually mean something.

Having lived in the US and having quite a few American family members, I would say that yes, their standards of literacy are quite poor in general compared to the UK.

I'm also an examiner for a few international qualifications in English and I can often tell when a paper is from an American candidate (the papers are anonymised so I have no info about who/where/which school or country). In addition to the much lower standard of English, there is often also a glaring lack of knowledge about geography of the world, combined with a staggering (given the other low level standards) arrogance about whatever the topic is they're supposed to be writing about.

This is silly, there's nothing wrong with learning to read through whole words, it's how people have been doing it for generations . I never learned phonics, I can definitely read I assure you 😂