The Hechinger Report – Jill Barshay
Only a third of American students are reading proficiently at grade level, according to national benchmark tests. Among low-income students it’s worse. Only one in five students is reading at grade level.
Education journalist Emily Hanford has argued that the failure to teach phonics in the early elementary years may be the problem. Research evidence certainly backs a phonics approach when first teaching kids how to read words but students need a lot more than word recognition to become good readers.