For kids going into college and a light to high school kids in their below basic reading skills. Causing any conflict in their own personal life is impeding to them and others and why many just don't want to mess with Gen Z! This is something they need to know like it happens for a reason. Not reading makes life harder like not making enough money low SES is like the kids in school having to get out of the pit to get to the starting line then running in the race not ready for it. Bad times!
~~~~Thirty-three percent of fourth-graders at or above NAEP Proficient in reading, lower compared to 2019. Thirty-three percent of fourth-grade students performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level on the reading assessment in 2022. This percentage was 2 percentage points lower compared to 2019 but was 5 percentage points higher in comparison to 1992, the first reading assessment year. This suggests that children’s early experiences, before they enter school, have long-lasting effects on their academic performance, and especially reading skills. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/nation/achievement/?grade=12
~~~~The report, which was based on a survey of nearly 1,000 hiring managers, found that one in six employers were reluctant to hire Gen Z workers mainly due to their reputation for being entitled and easily offended. https://www.parents.com/new-report-shows-record-low-reading-scores-among-kids-8785080
~~~~Reading relies on the integration of many different cognitive skills. Two that are critically involved are oral language skills, including listening, understanding, and speaking, and executive functioning (EF), which includes attention allocation, working memory, and flexible updating (see Cirino, this issue, for review of the role of EF in reading). Oral language and EF are the two neurocognitive domains most affected by SES. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10750966/
~~~~An alarming phenomenon has sprung up over the past few years: Many students are arriving at college unprepared to read entire books. That’s a broad statement to make, but I spoke with 33 professors at some of the country’s top universities, and over and over, they told me the same story. As I noted in my recent article on the topic, a Columbia professor said his students are overwhelmed at the thought of reading multiple books a semester; a professor at the University of Virginia told me that his students shut down when they’re confronted with ideas they don’t understand. Criticizing young people’s literacy stretches back centuries, but in the past decade, something seems to have noticeably shifted. Most of the professors I spoke with said they’ve seen a generational change in how their students engage with literature. https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/11/books-briefing-gen-z-reading-books-waste-time/680586/
