FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — It may surprise you just how many K-12 students across the country including Michigan don't know how to read.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 19% of fourth graders in Michigan were deemed "reading proficient" in 2024.
But a local nonprofit in Farmington Hills is working hard to boost that number.
“It was a struggle," Kahlil Assad of Bloomfield Township said.
He told us his son was struggling in school when it came to reading.
“We knew it watching him do his homework, staying up past his bedtime, trying to finish his homework, still not able to finish it," Assad said.
Extended interview: Kahlil Assad talks about the early signs that his child was struggling with readng
His son was in elementary school when the pandemic hit and by the time he was in seventh grade, he could only read at a fourth grade level.
"I think COVID really impacted a lot of children with the stay-at-home (orders), online learning," Assad said.
Here's an example of what it's like to read below a fourth grade level. The bottom paragraph would look like the one above it — just a string of words that don't make sense.
“For a long time, I've called this a silent epidemic," Pamela Good said.
Good is the CEO and co-founder of Beyond Basics, a nonprofit that for more than a decade has been working to make sure students in Michigan know how to read.
“What we have in this moment is an opportunity to get fourth through 12th graders caught up," Good said.
She says far too many students are moving onto the next grade before knowing how to read at their current grade level, causing them to fall behind and struggle in class.
In fact, recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows more than 60% of eighth grade students in every state are reading below proficiency.
“You know, in Oakland County, people think that all the kids are reading," Good said.
But that’s not the case. Beyond Basics found that nearly 65,000 students in Oakland County need extra reading help.
“That's what we do now. We have a site leader and we send in a number of tutors, six to 10 tutors typically, and schools decide which kids to send to us," Good said.
Veronica Reynolds has been one of those tutors for six years.
“Each student has an individual lesson plan. So, we catch them up one day at a time for 50 minutes a day. We have that one-to-one connection with the student," Reynolds said.
Assad says when his son got help from Beyond Basics, his life dramatically changed.
“My son went from a 4.5 grade reading level to an 8.5 grade reading level over a summer. I mean, phenomenal results,” he said.
They're results that Good would say is key for a child's future success.
“Right now in Michigan, we should just expand what we’ve started, and we should enter that race to literacy right now," Good said.
