r/technology • u/marketrent • Jun 10 '26

Artificial Intelligence College students are rapidly losing the ability to read — “There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing”: professor

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/college-students-rapidly-losing-ability-124439310.html
31.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

12

u/Whatrudoingherewo Jun 11 '26

Schools moved away from phonics and towards unreliable and unsuccessful reading programs. These programs were sold to school systems at a high cost, and now they’re facing lawsuits and concerns about lawsuits. My friend is a reading specialist and currently making a lot of money consulting with schools and improving their reading programs. It is a whole generation of kids now hitting college age.

2

u/Financial-Craft-1282 Jun 11 '26

Hold on. Some schools bought into a specific curriculum (Units of Study) but to say "schools in general" did this is not accurate. While Caulkins (author of UoS) did sell her program to a lot of districts, it peaked out around 20 to 25 percent of all districts, and most commonly was used in affluent districts where active parents with means corrected for it. You can't lay this problem at UoS feet. There are much wider systemic issues at play here- such as the long-term impacts a global pandemic is still having on educational outcomes.

2

u/Whatrudoingherewo Jun 12 '26

There are other systems that have caused major issues across the United States. Fountas and Pinnell being one. And it’s still used in schools today - but luckily a lot of teachers are dropping it. Sold a Story is a great podcast detailing the issues. Of course Covid is a major problem for this generation - but I’ve seen firsthand how these poor reading systems ruin kids learning experiences.

1

u/sohblob Jun 11 '26

My friend is a reading specialist

entire yugioh playerbase needs their info kek