It’s normal to be bad at math, but not reading. Why?

Let’s start with a thought experiment: Why do we normalize struggling to learn math, but not literacy?

Walk into a room and announce, “I’m bad at math!” Nine times out of ten, someone else will say, “Samsies!” But if you flip it, and openly admit you’re bad at reading…there would be stunned silence.* 

Given this literacy stigma, you might think teaching teachers to teach reading is a piece of cake (that’s a tongue twister if I ever wrote one), but it’s not. Just like being read math equations won’t magically teach you division, being read books won’t make reading click. There’s more to it all. 

And, scary statistics time: 75% of K-2nd grade teachers say they don’t feel prepared to teach students how to read. So trained specialists and high-impact tutors are vital to helping kids become confident readers. 

Hence why I’m showing up in your inbox again, and asking you to help Words in the Wild Foundation fund the WitW Teaching Fellowship. 

Because we know high-impact tutoring can repair a student’s relationship with reading, and we know that in just four years, one tutor can quadruple their impact across kids, families, and teachers alike. 

Let’s zoom in and look at an early career Teaching Fellow alumni, Kuku Kimura: 

In two years as a Fellow, Kiku turned a passion for teaching and great instincts into being able to lead a group of 18 wiggly kids under 9-years old through a morphology game with patience and playfulness. One highlight of Kiku’s experience was receiving a parent’s note that their middle-schooler moved out of the “red” (below the benchmark in reading) for the first time in his school career. 

Now, Kiku’s now a professional teaching assistant planning to pursue a credential  — and on track to double their impact by reaching hundreds of kids this year alone.