14-year-old girl can't read above a 1st grade level, can't understand why literacy is necessary in life: 'When I’m an adult, I’ll just know how to read'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Sep 11, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Illiteracy has been, and continues to be, a huge issue for young people. We live in a digital app-based world where, surprisingly, kids can spend their whole day on their phones, navigating social media perfectly, even if they don't have basic literacy skills. You would think reading TikTok captions would expose kids to more words than watching a TV show, but that's not the truth, Ellen. 

Regardless of the type of schooling a child receives, whether it's public, private, or homeschool, a child can fall through the cracks and graduate 12th grade as an illiterate person. Sometimes parents are unaware that their child is struggling with reading because the teacher is passing them along, despite their not meeting the class's performance standards. Sometimes, parents are fully aware that their kid struggles to read, has tried to get them tutoring, but nothing has stuck. If a kid isn't being evaluated for vision or hearing problems, those might be the underlying causes of reading struggles. 

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  • It can be emotionally trying for kids to struggle so much in school. They might feel like they're too stupid to meet basic milestones, and stop trying because they get so frustrated. The best thing for kids who struggle with literacy is to have adults in their lives who don't just throw in the towel when the going gets tough. They need grown-ups who will do everything possible to ensure their success in adult life. The stepmom in this story may or may not be the kind of adult her 14-year-old stepdaughter needs.

  • Teen girl in a gray NYC sweatshirt riding a bicycle on road during daytime
    via 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • My Teenage Stepdaughter Can’t Read

    So this is gonna be a long one so that I can give as much context as possible. So we're in CT and as the title says, my 14 yr old stepdaughter(HS freshman) can't read. By that I mean she barely reads above a 1st grade level, and struggles mainly with sounding out words well enough to put the sounds together and get the resulting word. She usually gives
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  • up and breaks down once she feels like the word is out of her reach. For example, out to eat the other day she was trying to read the categories and could not get past the 'Pah' sound in Pasta. She got frustrated and started guessing words like places and plates.
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  • For a little background, I have been in her life since she was 4. My husband has shared joint custody with his ex and while she is the "custodial parent" they have equal parenting rights on everything and we have her pretty equal to the time she's with her mom. When she was in
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  • 1st grade there was discussion by her teachers to keep her back a year, and her mother fought it, so she continued on to 2nd grade. When she was about 8 we started her with a tutor when it was clear she was going to continue to fall behind and needed additional outside help. After about a year
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  • with that tutor, there had been no progression and we really couldn't afford it. My husband and I have been the only parents to continuously go to her schools over the years following up and working with her at home every day she was with us. Eventually once she went to middle school, she had an IEP and more resources. Her schools speech
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  • pathologist worked with her as much as she could and we ended up finding a former teacher, trained in Orton Gillingham, to start tutoring her again.
    via u/Icy-Mycologist5232
  • Young teacher looking at you while sitting by desk in front of laptop in classroom
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • About a year ago she said something that really worried us, during one of the many conversations we've had with her about why she can't give up and why her learning to read is necessary for her to be able to progress in life. She often gives
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  • up and won't push herself, and in response to me reminding her that she wouldn't be able to get her license or a job without being able to read, she simply said "Well when I'm an adult I'll just know how to read" which seemed like quite a fantastical way of thinking for someone her age(13 then).
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  • Throughout all of this we have tried reading with her ourselves, however it often ends very quickly with her having a full on meltdown because she gets embarrassed and frustrated that she can't do it. We defer to tutors because it has been the healthiest way for her and us, as well as a reading app that was recommended to us that she's
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  • been using for over a year now. It reads along with her and listens and corrects her if she gets a word wrong, eliminating any embarrassment she gets from reading with a person.
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  • Person holding black android smartphone
    via Leon Seibert

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Fast forward to now, she still sees the tutor twice a week for an hour each time and uses the reading app(Read with Ello) to read at least 2 hours a week. Our biggest roadblock is her mother, who has never once helped SD with schoolwork or contributed to any help we've given her. She has
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  • washed her hands of it and when we've asked for her support in simply making sure she practices reading at her house and holds her accountable for her schoolwork, she just says "She has a learning dis ility, the school has done all they can do". She's more concerned with being SDs friend, and prefers us to be the "bad guys". SD has never been
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  • diagnosed with any specific learning dis lity. She is a freshman in HS now and we still have to use every bit of energy & time we have with her to make her practice her reading. She has an iPhone on our phone plan, and when she doesn't complete the reading she is
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  • supposed to do for the week, she loses access to anything outside of calls/texts on her phone. She also has chores that she does weekly(it's just dishes twice a week, take out the trash bin to the curb once a week, and vacuum once a week) and gets $20/week for. She loses that weekly allowance if she goes 2 weeks without doing the amount
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  • of reading she needs to do. Over the years we have also tried many different forms of positive reinforcement and we set monthly goals for her to achieve that would earn her extra clothes or fun activities of her choosing. We are currently trying to get a referral from the high school to have a Dr evaluate her for underlying physical issues that
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  • may be the cause, her previous school determined that there was no learning dis lity that they could specifically pinpoint. They didn't think there was anything physical that could be helped, but we want another opinion.
    via u/Icy-Mycologist5232
  • AT THIS POINT, WE ARE LOOKING FOR ANY ADVICE. Advice on what might be the issue, advice on how to motivate her, advice on at home practice we could try, advice on what questions to ask her school counselors/doctors, advice on how to deal with her horrible mother. We are completely at a loss and are so incredibly frightened for what her future will look like.
    via u/Icy-Mycologist5232
  • Whole-Ad-2347 Retired reading teacher here. Research has shown that a child who is not reading at grade level by third grade may never read on grade level. It is really late for her to be working on learning to read, but that doesn't mean to give up. Just know that this is a very concerning challenge!
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  • She should have been working on it everyday since she was 6, even earlier. There are developmental things for each age and if those are not met at those ages, then developmentally, they become a real struggle. Reading is one of them. She needs one on one help every day in a positive and rewarding way. Has she been evaluated for learning difficulties? Has she had her eyes checked? Do her eyes work well enough to focus on letters, this is not about 20/20. There are five components of reading: Phon
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  • Phonics: Does she have phonics knowledge? There is a series called Explode the Code which focuses on phonics, written by the parent of a dyslexic child. It is detailed, and repetitive in a way that is not necessarily boring. There are a few sets of phonics readers that work with the progression of phonics in reading. Phonemic Awareness: Can she break words down into sounds? Cat c-a-t If you sound out a word, can she put the sounds together and tell you what the word is?
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  • Fluency: does she have any sight words memorized? You can make up notecards of the most common ones and have her work on a few at a time, adding a couple more when she knows the earlier ones, and building up her base of sight words. How are her verbal skills? Does she have a large vocabulary, and does she sometimes mispronounce words? Comprehension: Can she tell back a story, such as after seeing a movie?
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  • Darker_desuetude I'm wondering how she could be in high school without being able to read a word as simple as pasta? Every single class requires reading comprehension so how has she made it this far without being able to read? Sounds like the schools and teachers have failed her.
    via u/Darker_desuetude

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stepmother teenager teenage reading teenagers literacy bad parenting bad parents parenting stepdaughter raising teens dad illiterate Parenting Fail parents mom
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