True Patriot Love - March 27, 2026


Canada’s Literacy Crisis： Why Kids Are Falling Behind？

Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Mentioned
Nick Dolinsky
Did Trump Manipulate the Markets？ Inside the Timing That Raised Eyebrows Should Canada Go Nuclear？! Jim Lang & Paul Micucci Debate Canada’s Defence Future

Episode Stats


Length

17 minutes

Words per minute

155.04

Word count

2,765

Sentence count

114

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Over the past few years, there s been a growing and somewhat uncomfortable realization in education: We may be facing a real decline in literacy among children. In this episode, we talk to Nick Dolinsky, a concerned dad and someone who s gone deep on the topic.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Over the past few years, there's been a growing and somewhat uncomfortable realization in education.
00:00:06.320 We may be facing a real decline in literacy among children, not just in isolated pockets, but across the entire system.
00:00:14.500 Here in Canada, the picture is subtle but concerning.
00:00:17.880 Reading scores have been gradually declining over time, and a significant portion of students, roughly 1 in 5, are not reaching basic levels of reading proficiency.
00:00:27.380 That means many students are struggling with something as fundamental as understanding written information well enough to function effectively in everyday life.
00:00:38.000 When a foundational skill like reading begins to erode, gradually it raises deeper questions about how we're teaching, how students are learning, and whether our assumptions about education still hold up.
00:00:51.280 Well, when we expand the lens to the United States,
00:00:54.780 the picture becomes sharper and more alarming.
00:00:58.520 Recent data shows significant drops in reading scores
00:01:01.620 with large percentages of students
00:01:03.640 falling below basic proficiency levels.
00:01:06.080 In some cases, these are the lowest scores
00:01:08.880 recorded in decades.
00:01:10.380 And importantly, this decline
00:01:11.840 doesn't start with the pandemic.
00:01:13.540 It was already underway and has since accelerated.
00:01:16.460 So the question becomes, what's going on?
00:01:21.280 All right. Joining us, a concerned dad and somebody who's gone deep on the topic,
00:01:28.920 researching this for today's show, our very own Nick Dolinsky. Thanks for joining me, man.
00:01:33.140 No problem, man. So here's some of the stats. This is just children, K to 12. 18% of Canadian
00:01:39.680 15-year-olds do not meet the baseline reading proficiency. Low-performing readers increased
00:01:45.200 from 14 percent to 18 percent since just 2018. You know, this is stunning. That decline minus 13
00:01:53.940 points between six and 12 months of learning loss. And that, I guess, is COVID related,
00:02:03.220 educating from home. The problem started before COVID. So this decline started before COVID
00:02:10.180 happened. Now, COVID didn't help, of course. There are a lot of things that people point to
00:02:15.500 in regards to this problem, but it was very important to me being the father of a two-year-old
00:02:20.580 who's about to go through the school system. So I really wanted to find out why this is happening
00:02:28.100 and how I could steer clear of it with my daughter. And the topic came up here and I
00:02:35.700 decided I sort of raised my hands that I want to talk about it. Okay. So now as you started to
00:02:41.820 dig deep on this, first of all, where did you start your journey? I got tipped off from the
00:02:49.000 topic from a TikTok from a school teacher in the U.S. talking about how much trouble her children
00:02:56.640 have with reading, critical thinking, being able to form complex ideas. It was really, really
00:03:03.460 disturbing. So that kind of triggered me, so to speak. And so I just started looking into it,
00:03:12.600 like what are the causes? What are these things? How can I steer clear? And eventually a video
00:03:18.520 appeared on my feed that was talking about critical literacy. And this idea of critical
00:03:27.100 literacy um so what this youtuber was saying was that the that the reason why um um childhood
00:03:35.340 reading rates are so poor is because in maybe 30 years ago 20 to 30 years ago um school systems
00:03:42.220 switched from um teaching phonics to teaching critical literacy uh she said what is critical
00:03:50.700 literacy okay critical literacy i will i will read it the description yeah let's let's be critical
00:03:55.740 and literate yes we will and literal will be semi-critical semi-literate um so critical literacy
00:04:02.220 is an approach to reading writing and interpreting text that focuses on examining power bias and
00:04:07.340 social context within language and communication instead of asking what does this text say
00:04:13.420 critical literacy asks deeper questions like who created this message and why whose perspectives
00:04:19.020 are represented whose perspectives are missing or marginalized what assumptions about society
00:04:24.700 are being promoted how might different audiences interpret this differently
00:04:30.140 okay well that's a lot to load into reading something it's to me you know um my reaction
00:04:37.180 to this when i when i heard about it was that this is completely absurd how this is completely
00:04:43.740 cart before the horse how are we supposed to how is a child who's seven eight years old supposed
00:04:49.900 to understand like whose perspectives are represented in you know cat in the hat see
00:04:54.640 see john run hmm yeah so wow no no let's just learn see john run of course yeah you know it's
00:05:05.520 who's he running from why is he running why won't he walk yeah what yeah it's it's nonsense so uh
00:05:13.420 it it kind of set me off and i said i gotta look into this more like what is this critical
00:05:17.380 literacy thing and then um you know i let down a couple a few rabbit holes and i started seeing it
00:05:22.100 more and in social media this this critique of sort of woke uh teaching methods uh making our
00:05:28.080 children illiterate um is it a real thing dick it's not and that's that's the spoiler it's not 0.85
00:05:35.400 no kidding it just feels like it would be an impossibility to impose that on top of just
00:05:44.900 learning how a sentence structure works how words are formed where you put the emphasis on the
00:05:52.980 syllables properly yeah absolutely and this was the role of phonics um phonics i remember phonics
00:05:59.860 hooked on phonics i was hooked on it but but the funny thing is is that uh i had a family member
00:06:04.900 way back in the day who had trouble learn uh reading and uh she went on hooked on phonics and
00:06:11.780 the truth is and this is true that hooked on phonics became popular uh amongst parents in
00:06:17.460 the 90s early 2000s because it it seems that the the newer methods of teaching reading
00:06:23.940 weren't working very well especially amongst kids with yeah with learning disabilities
00:06:28.980 um dyslexia things like this so yeah it seems like there's these new methods that
00:06:34.420 that are just not working well um so sorry nick where did the take me back again where did this
00:06:40.900 originate where did the seed of this get planted and how did it start to grow in any in any
00:06:47.140 education system or did it ever get planted did it ever make its way into any system
00:06:54.660 or are we just highlighting moments of embarrassing moments of teaching from different places to
00:07:01.140 illustrate this we are highlighting i would say i would say the situation is complicated and uh
00:07:06.900 misleading i would say and i think a lot of people don't fully understand um what the situation
00:07:11.540 actually is especially when you when you throw politics into the mix um so the truth is is that
00:07:18.500 well this is a real issue um children a lot of children are not being taught using um
00:07:26.340 evidence-based methods critical literacy on the other hand is a whole other story so
00:07:31.380 So there was a report done by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
00:07:37.080 So I think it was conducted in 2019.
00:07:41.420 And they reported, and this was a complaint from parents of children who were struggling to learn in the current school system.
00:07:52.460 And the Ontario Human Rights Commission had to get involved because it had gotten so bad that children with dyslexia, with learning disabilities, marginalized kids, were not being taught properly how to read.
00:08:10.400 Now, I went to the report and searched critical literacy and got zero results.
00:08:16.580 So critical literacy was not brought up.
00:08:18.920 Instead, what was brought up was something called balanced literacy.
00:08:22.920 What's that?
00:08:23.920 Now, balanced literacy is often confused with critical literacy.
00:08:28.920 Okay.
00:08:29.920 So what balanced literacy is, and I'll have to read it as well because it's a bit jargony.
00:08:33.920 The cat and the hat and the other cat too.
00:08:35.920 Yes.
00:08:36.920 Okay.
00:08:37.920 You balance with the other cat.
00:08:38.920 No.
00:08:39.920 So balanced literacy.
00:08:40.920 So what balanced literacy is?
00:08:42.920 Balanced literacy emerged in the 1980s and 2000s as a dominant approach to many school systems.
00:08:47.920 It was influenced by whole language theories, and this is the key, whole language methods of reading.
00:08:56.620 So rather than sounding out words letter for letter to figure out what the word is, you're supposed to, I don't know exactly,
00:09:04.900 but look at the word as a whole to recognize its meaning and how to read it, I guess.
00:09:09.800 Interesting. So it focuses on reading authentic text, student choice, writing workshops, contextual guessing strategies, meaning making from text. This is a lot of claptrap, really. It's sort of, it sounds very holistic, but ultimately it's just not very effective.
00:09:30.360 so this came out in the 1990s as supposed to be this this better alternative to phonics
00:09:34.520 i guess or better alternative to um to teaching to teaching reading but ever since it's been
00:09:41.240 implemented it's been abundantly clear that it's not an effective way to teach reading
00:09:49.160 and the pushback on it has have we found ourselves back in the phonics realm with that age group
00:09:57.160 well in Ontario yes so in Ontario after the after the report was made Ontario did actually
00:10:05.080 put initiatives forward to focus on evidence-based
00:10:11.640 literacy teaching particularly phonics but this has been an issue especially in Canada and the
00:10:18.600 US the US has also switched over to balanced methods and there's been a lot of fights about
00:10:23.640 getting phonics back into um into schooling kind of begs the question and i think it's good that
00:10:29.560 we advance uh society through education i mean we'll do that with technology we'll do that with
00:10:35.960 discovery and advancements um but i have to ask it it just seems to me and and you've been an
00:10:42.120 educator um shouldn't we just leave some of the basics alone uh the basics being how to communicate
00:10:50.040 how to write being able to frame it so that marginalized students or uh students with
00:10:58.580 different challenges and learning to read and write have a margin against which we can measure
00:11:04.600 it seemed like it worked very well for my generation and that sounds like an old guy 0.97
00:11:09.660 thing to say yeah uh maybe there's better ways to teach it maybe there's better but the basics of
00:11:15.860 things like phonics um you know creating sentence structure using um you know that kind of teaching
00:11:22.900 method shouldn't that maybe just be left alone um well in this case it should have been left alone
00:11:29.060 um you know of course you know i could understand why researchers educators would want to find new
00:11:35.380 ways and even better ways of course teaching of teaching uh children how to read um if there are
00:11:41.460 more effective ways but unfortunately not all new ideas are good ideas and this was not a good idea
00:11:47.140 it seems and you know there there had the the human rights commission had to get involved
00:11:52.260 you know at this point because they've been using this this um like theoretically unproven method
00:11:57.460 for two decades that's a great point the education system would have been left to do this continue
00:12:04.100 with this unless another branch of the government looking out for our human rights got involved yeah
00:12:11.460 Yeah, it is, you know, it is outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. I can't believe that, was it nearly 30 years? We've been using inferior methods to teach children how to read. And yeah, so, you know, in terms of, you know, what I would say to other parents, you know, who are in my same situation, it would be that, you know, you should check with your children's schooling and see if they are using evidence-based methods.
00:12:39.400 And if not, insist that they do get it.
00:12:42.440 And if they can't get phonics education, unfortunately, you may have to go, you know, outside the system.
00:12:51.200 Hooked on Phonics still exists, and it exists for this reason.
00:12:55.500 Yeah, I can imagine.
00:12:56.580 You know, and then I take a look.
00:12:57.780 You know, do you mind if I dig down on some of the other stats that you provided?
00:13:00.520 Yeah.
00:13:00.980 I found this just as disturbing.
00:13:03.620 Adult literacy has declined significantly in recent years.
00:13:06.500 Well, that's because we've had 30 years of teaching it wrong.
00:13:09.400 hmm or approaching it incorrectly perhaps uh reading scores declined uh most oecd
00:13:19.000 countries uh 36 participating nations reading scores declined across the board that is true
00:13:26.440 and yeah so reading is declining all over the world it is especially bad in the u.s so canada
00:13:31.640 is not quite uh is not doing quite as badly in regards to literacy but the other thing is that
00:13:38.280 we can't we can't attribute all of this problem to balanced literacy in particular um
00:13:45.560 there there are so there are so many causes and we all know of course yeah you know what
00:13:50.360 what this you know there's uh variants of student to student even right absolutely absolutely and
00:13:56.920 um no difference you know our education systems are underfunded things like this um things like
00:14:03.720 like TikTok, you know, visual media, social media has taken all of our attention and taken it away
00:14:08.980 from proper reading. And there are many causes to this problem. Let's be honest, Nick, how far
00:14:15.380 away from grunting at our computer at ChatGPT are we from writing a novel? You know, brr, brr.
00:14:22.600 Wow, there we go. Masterpiece. A little surprise. So I think that's another challenge that is out
00:14:29.420 there, you know, you want the basics built into your little human that understands that what is
00:14:39.320 getting fed back is looking wrong and written wrong. And that's because it's not a human doing
00:14:47.620 it. Right. That distinction has to be made by understanding the language and how to apply it,
00:14:52.760 how to read it, how to apply it in writing. Very, very, very disturbing. One in five
00:14:58.960 students is challenged with a reading problem has literacy issues yeah and what i hear is that
00:15:07.440 a lot of english majors so new students to university studying english have not read a
00:15:13.380 full book in their life wow yeah that's pretty i thought that was just left to us radio graduates
00:15:19.380 yeah i didn't know that it was a pandemic of non-reading yeah well it's english so you know
00:15:26.140 We're not talking, you know, meat cutting.
00:15:28.400 We're talking English majors.
00:15:30.340 That's outstanding.
00:15:32.000 It's so funny because many universities that have big literature programs and also big math programs, their math skill set and the students skill set is enormous.
00:15:44.020 And the literacy side of things, they fall off entirely.
00:15:47.260 And where you have to blend in university, that's where they get the most turbulent waters for these students.
00:15:53.000 yeah technically speaking math related science related very strong communication skills very
00:16:00.960 poor yeah and uh i think i think chat gpt and things like this could be also be a culprit i
00:16:06.600 mean writing is reading so if you're if you're sending all of the even the simplest writing
00:16:12.200 that you're doing through chat gpt you're losing that skill you're having that thing right for you
00:16:17.240 you know. Yeah, tons and tons of issues regarding reading. You know, it's very complicated
00:16:24.900 in this regard, but definitely balanced literacy. Got to go.
00:16:30.560 I heard a teacher recently say to their students, make spelling mistakes. That's how I know it's you.
00:16:36.400 We can correct the mistakes.
00:16:38.280 Well, wait until AI starts making spelling mistakes on purpose.
00:16:41.440 Why did you say that out loud? Now AI is working on that as we speak.
00:16:44.920 Nick, I really appreciate this.
00:16:46.340 Thanks, man. And by the way, if I may take a moment, everything you see, everything that
00:16:50.640 happens here on TPL goes through the technical eyes and through our producer, Nick. So thank
00:16:57.800 you so much on behalf of all of us for that. Thanks, man.
00:17:00.320 Doing an amazing job. Thank you for being with us. Don't forget to subscribe, tell a friend,
00:17:04.040 complain about today's show in the comments, or even just add more to the conversation.
00:17:08.500 That's how we get new shows. Thanks. We'll catch you next time.
00:17:16.340 patriotic means looking up for each other and fixing things together true patriotism is being
00:17:25.600 in the country you love surrounded by people you love and great weather being a patriot is being a
00:17:30.480 part of your community and caring for it it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from
00:17:34.500 patriotism is the one thing we all share it's okay to be critical of government and still be a
00:17:41.080 It's gratitude to your country.
00:17:43.080 Of course I'm a patriot. I'm Canadian. It's my home.
00:17:46.080 Well, actually, true patriot love is the mission.