I found this podcast from this 
post:
I subbed today for a 7th and 8th grade teacher. I’m not exaggerating when I say at least 50% of the students were at a 2nd grade reading level. The students were to spend the class time filling out an “all about me” worksheet, what’s your name, favorite color, favorite food etc. I was asked 20 times today “what is this word?”. Movie. Excited. Trait. “How do I spell race car driver?”
I've only listened to one episode so far, but it's really well produced, seems well-researched and very well put together.
From what I gather so far, the ways that the American public school system "teaches" kids how to read is not only completely wrong, but actually saddles them bad habits which fundamentally hinder their reading comprehension.
A huge swath of American adults are functionally illiterate, and I think I'm starting to understand why.
A lot of people are commenting about how, so what, lots of people can read and are also stupid. Except this isn't about being stupid. Or dumb. Reading and writing is a skill you gotta be tutored into. You won't learn it through intuition. You won't learn it through osmosis, guesswork or because the Holy Ghost descended from the heavens to enlighten your soul. You have to be taught, step by step, how to decode writing in order to then develop it into other skills, like different levels of reading, making annotations, making summaries, prose writing, and so on. All of these things should ideally become second nature to you through a long process of 'scholarization', one that is formulated with full understanding of what kids of different ages tend to need, and what kids in particular may require of their teachers.
Think about it. This isn't like zoomers being unable to use Windows because they have phones. It's like not having a school system in the first place. Good god, the districts that keep this scam pedagogy in place are gonna create a lost generation.
Literacy is a communist conspiracy
MILLENNIA of funny SQUIGGLES on stone tablets, papyrus, and PAPER
There are only THREE sounds in the word "EIGHT", why are there FIVE letters???
They have played us for FOOLS