"They can't read!"

I don't know if I dislike many phrases in education more than "they can't read." More often than not, the person saying it means something more specific. Perhaps it is that students can't decode, struggle with making inferences, have a hard time finding the theme or main ideas, often, it is a vocabulary issue. Generalizing it as a reading issue has led to many kids not getting the support they need.

I think it is often teachers not knowing what is missing, lack of plans to get actual support in place, lack of knowledge in how to address the identified concerns, and over-emphasis on one approach.

Ultimately, we need to get back to the basics. Not the basics of reading instruction but the basics of knowing our students, our curriculum, and what reading looks like in different disciplines. As an English teacher, my students have few opportunities to read words like oligosaccharide in class; however, they might come upon it in Biology class. People struggle with unfamiliar words. Even suggesting something like structured word inquiry and morphology might not be helpful. The Biology teacher needs to provide the background knowledge for that word.

Another phrase I dislike in education is "we are all reading teachers". We are not, but we might all need to help students learn the language and how to "read" in our courses.

Language is tricky. Sometimes, folks try to boil it down to something too simple.

"They can't read" is just that.

Too simple.