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Has anyone else noticed a sudden lack of reading comprehension skills? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Just as the title asks I've noticed a very sharp increase in people just straight up not comprehending what they're reading.

They'll read it and despite all the information being there, if it's even slightly out of line from the most straightforward sentence structure, they act like it's complete gibberish or indecipherable.

Has anyone else noticed this? Because honestly it's making me lose my fucking mind.

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[–] Lorindol@sopuli.xyz 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes. For years now. And I am horrified.

I am a teacher and I've had students who could not find the article about lions from the animal encyclopedia I handed to them. And when I helped them to find it, one started crying, one tried to read it (stopped after a minute or so) and one asked "Isn't there some lion video we could watch instead?". It was two pages with a lot of pictures. But it was too much for these 5th graders.

Reading proper books has become almost impossible to kids because their attention span is almost non-existent with written material.

We've tried to add more emphasis on basic reading skills in the early grades for some time now, but it seems to have very little effect.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is this actually due to attention span, or are these children basically illiterate?

https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't know there's anything wrong with it.

[–] Lorindol@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

Jesus. That theory is the one my professors talked about in university, as an example of "how to never teach anyone anything".