My kids could read before they started kindergarten. The youngest was on 3rd grade (age 8) level when she was 5 years old. However, by the time she finished 2nd grade she had not progressed at all. How?

I sometimes volunteered in her class and discovered that the teacher read out all instructions to students, did not spend much time in reading circles with them (most of her time was taken with riding herd over the 4 or 5 students with ADHD and/ or other learning impediments). The quiet students would do worksheets (having first had instructions read out to them by the teacher) and be permitted to go to one of the learning centers dotted around the room when work was completed. My youngest's favourite was the reading center.

I discovered that it was really a listening center. Books with audio tapes with the little "ping" that told you when to turn the page. She would bring books home and read them aloud then say "ping" and turn the page. She had memorised what she heard and was not actually reading or working out new words any longer. She had become quite adamant about which books she would read for me. Only the ones that had accompanying audio tape.

Yet her report cards always said she was the best reader in the class. I asked the teacher how she assessed this. The answer, "Your daughter spends all her free time in the reading center so she must be a good reader and her work on the worksheets is correct." I argued the point that she is a good listener, but nothing shows she is a good reader. Nothing in her work shows she actually read and understood anything.

I took her out of public education and put her in a small private school for a few years to get her back on track. There she flourished and was better prepared to take on middle and high school. While in high school she also took college level general education courses in English Composition and US History, which transferred to her university work.

I don't know if there is a conspiracy to dumb down, but it seems that boards of education and teachers are placed in a limbo of catering to a very wide spectrum of ability and needs which is difficult to meet in practice.