This is in conversation from Apple News. I'm Shemeita Basso. Today, why so many kids in America can't read well and how we can fix it.

America has a literacy crisis.

For years, roughly a third of fourth graders have not met the basic reading proficiency standards

set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress,

and scores only dropped during the pandemic.

The pandemic also called attention to the problem in a new way by bringing the classroom home and

giving parents a chance to see firsthand how their kids were being taught to read.

I'm trying to make sense of some contradictions I see between the well-established science of reading

and how kids are actually being taught to read.

ST Ideralde is a behavioral scientist and a parent.

She made this video after listening in on a few of her daughter's first grade remote reading

lessons during the pandemic.

To Esti, it seemed more like her daughter was memorizing the stories or using pictures instead of actually reading.

Purple, I paint the sense purple.

Yeah, it's purple. Yeah, it's amazing how you're reading

without even looking at the words.

I paint.

So Esti did a little experiment.

She took away the pictures and then showed her daughter just one word,

purple.

You, er, p p p p p.

How are you with?

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