Music Teacher Says Students From Elementary To Middle School Are Struggling Because They Can't Read
Not being able to read is an issue that affects kids long after they've left school.
Adam Winger / Unsplash Teresa Kaye Newman is an educator and band director.
She recently took on the issue of reading comprehension in the classroom, noting just how powerless she feels as a teacher to shift the tides of illiteracy in the U.S.
The music teacher said that students of all ages are struggling because they can’t actually read.
“This one’s for anyone who still thinks I’m lying that kids in grades that should know how to read and recognize the first seven letters of their alphabet are indeed struggling with those two concepts,” she started in her TikTok post.
“I have kiddos struggling to put xylophone bars back on the instrument, even though they’re big to small and in alphabet order,” she revealed. “They are struggling in music class because they can’t read.”
Newman shared the various ways that not knowing how to read spills over to other subjects, like music.
“The most basic concept they need to be able to know… to function in music class is the first seven letters of their alphabet,” she explained, yet the kids in her classes don’t seem to have a solid grasp on that information.
She spoke directly to people who have a hard time believing that middle school kids are struggling to read, saying, “Bring it back down to kids that are [in] kindergarten, first, second grade, [and] third grade, when you have children’s piano teachers who are also saying that they’re having issues with kids not being able to tell you what letter comes next in the alphabet.”
Photo: Seven Shooter / Unsplash
“That’s a problem,” Newman declared.
According to the National Literacy Institute, about 40% of students in the U.S. can’t read at a basic level. That number jumps significantly higher when looking at low-income students: Around 70% of low-income 4th-graders can’t read at a basic level, and 54% of adults in the U.S. have literacy below the 6th-grade level.
Illiteracy is an issue that affects every aspect of our society, including the economy, costing taxpayers around $20 billion a year. Between 46% and 51% of adults earn well below the poverty level because they can’t read.
Literacy is a social justice issue, affected by the numerous structural inequities in the U.S. There’s a direct link between children’s vocabulary skills and the economic background they come from.
By age three, there’s a 30 million-word gap between the wealthiest kids and the poorest kids in our country. 34% of kids going into kindergarten lack the basic language skills they need to learn how to read.
Photo: Gaelle Marcel / Unsplash
Newman posed the question she assumed many people were thinking: “How is this happening?” The answer she provided was disheartening.
“It’s because a lot of times, teachers are forced to pass them on to the next grade level. We’re forced to give them grades above a 50,” she said. “It’s because whenever we have a kid that doesn’t understand the words on the page, we have to feed them the curriculum and the material in such a way where they don’t have to read.”
She touched on the way teachers are essentially forced to pass kids to the next grade, despite their low level of reading comprehension.
“Admin is basically telling me, ‘You’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to get these numbers, or you’ve gotta get kids to a certain point, where they are all playing instruments and all performing at a certain level. You just don’t have a choice,’” she shared.
“As much as I would like to remediate every kid that doesn’t know their alphabet in my class, by the time they hit seventh or eighth grade, by the time they are sixth graders in my class, I don’t have time to teach them the alphabet.”
Teachers seem to be fighting a losing battle.
Most teachers across the country are fighting a battle they can’t seem to win. They put their lives on the line every day, for an income that barely qualifies as a living wage.
It would be easy to cast blame on teachers, themselves, for seemingly not doing their job as educators, but to take that line of thinking would overlook the larger issues that teachers are up against.
It’s clear that the structure of our education system, on a whole, isn’t working to nurture or prepare kids for their future, and that, in itself, is the actual failing.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.