Reading, attention, and speech
What the videos actually say
These are posts about Generation Alpha, the children in school now. Generation Beta, the usual name for babies born from 2025 on, is still too young to be in these classrooms. Each note is what the speaker says, not a finding of this brief. A public clip specifically about mispronounced words did not turn up in a form that could be checked.
YouTube
Ashley Embers · YouTube
A first-grade teacher in the clip says she had to go back to the letter H, because children were not yet writing simple words. A fifth-grade teacher says students are reading at a second- or third-grade level. An eight- or nine-year-old, handed a menu, tells a bartender, “I can’t read.” The video cites national figures: in 2022 nearly 70 percent of eighth graders scored below proficient in reading, and about 30 percent of those scored below basic. For math, it says 56 percent of fourth graders were on grade level in spring 2023, down from 69 percent in 2019. The closing claim is that AI lets students skip the practice those skills take.
Teacher Therapy · YouTube · An ex-teacher who taught grades 4–8
She plays a fourth-grade teacher who has two students at a kindergarten reading level and about four at a first-grade level, with about six of 24 on grade level. The teacher says she is not allowed to use anything except the district curriculum, and there is no time in the day to read a book. The host says almost 40 percent of fourth graders score below basic in reading, and about 45 percent of twelfth graders do too, the lowest since 1992. She argues the drop comes from curriculums that dropped phonics, from passing students along, and from homes where nobody reads aloud. Her ask is 15 to 30 minutes of reading at home.
Informed Insights · YouTube
A teacher says children cannot read and cannot do math, and that blaming parents or blaming teachers will not change it. She describes buying a book set herself because the assigned books were not ones the students would read. She teaches in Florida and says banning a book does not matter if the child cannot read it. The plea is to teach reading first, then argue about which books.
Casey Simpson · YouTube
He treats the reading trouble as a symptom. In his telling, a student given a paragraph cannot say what it was about, and some cannot say what a paragraph is. He also says a single required curriculum, used with every child, is why teachers resent the job and leave.
Marissa Van · YouTube
The video’s own description says teachers are leaving because of phones, TikTok, and AI in class, and because test scores are falling. It frames the reading problem as part of students who cannot focus once the screen is gone.
TikTok
QBSkiiii · @qbthedon · September 19, 2023 · Atlanta-area seventh grade
This is the clip other teachers stitched. He says the pandemic put students behind, and that almost nobody is saying how far. Most of his seventh graders, he says, are at a fourth-grade level, and some are at kindergarten through third grade. He says he can count on one hand how many are on grade level, and that zeros in the grade book do not stop the school from sending the child to eighth grade.
Finally An EdD · September 20, 2023 · A stitch of the video above
A middle-school special-education teacher answers him. She says the children are not the ones who chose the reading curriculum. On the video she writes that seventh graders tell her they have never read a whole book. The comments under it argue about phonics: several teachers say sight-word guessing replaced sounding words out, and that children then could not read a new word.
ryuhhnn · November 1, 2023 · A stitch of Newman Music Academy
The answer in the clip is phonics. It points at the Sold a Story argument: children were taught to guess a word from the picture or the first letter, which is not the same as reading it. Comments from teachers say a child who had learned to sound words out went backward after a sight-word program, and that a stepdaughter’s memorized books hid the fact that she could not read.
The Literacy Bar · A literacy coach, not a “Gen Alpha” rant
This one pushes the other direction. The coach says a child who hates reading often has the wrong book, or never learned that sounds connect to letters. The offer is practical: tell her the child’s age and the stuck point. It is useful next to the rant videos because it treats the same symptom as a missing skill, not a broken generation.
Yaya · @mama1mamita · TikTok · October 7, 2026
She writes that teaching her daughter to read has been a long journey. They started when the child was 3, and a year and a half later they are still struggling with basic CVC words. She asks what she is doing wrong.
HomeworkHelp · @homework_help365_days · TikTok · October 16, 2026 · South Africa
The post says 81 percent of Grade 4 learners can’t read, and that the account has a phonics reading pack. Comments under it say children are more focused on cell phones and less on reading, and that learners are passed to the next grade when they can’t read. One comment names the education system in South Africa.
Instagram
tmurph · Instagram · October 17, 2026
The caption says kids can’t read and kids can’t count, asks what is happening, and says this is bigger than school. It asks what the parents are doing. A comment from Sweden says children there can’t look at a clock and tell the time. Other comments describe a young cashier who took out a phone calculator to make change from $60.
true.vinehc · Instagram · October 17, 2026
The caption says children can’t read and can’t read books, and calls that a sad reality. It asks how they can look to God if they can’t read God’s word. It says many in the Holiness faith lacked education and taught themselves to read.
Attention, YouTube, and iPads
Zac V2 · YouTube
He plays parents listing an iPad for a 2-year-old, a 5-year-old, a 7-year-old, and a 10-year-old, and reads comments asking why a 2-year-old needs one. A teacher says she can tell which students have an iPad at home. Those children may sing the alphabet or count, she says, and still lack a pincer grasp for ordinary tasks. Another teacher says unlimited screen time shows up as behavior at school that parents do not see at home, including a child who hands a worksheet back and says they are not doing it.
Steve Chen · Stanford Graduate School of Business · YouTube
Chen, who co-founded YouTube, says short-form video is entertainment for a moment, and that shorter clips equate to shorter attention spans. He says he does not want his own children to have short videos as their only way of watching, and then be unable to stay with something longer than about 15 minutes. He says children who are not shown the short, bright clips first stay content with the longer kind.
Sam Jackson · @_samjjackson · TikTok · A London primary teacher
The link opens her account. TikTok did not give a stable address for this one clip. She says teachers can tell which children spend a lot of time on a phone or an iPad. The children with less of it start conversations, have more to talk about, and use full sentences. The others, she says, use meme phrases and do not. On attention, she says she can set a task and the lower-screen children finish it without getting bored or needing a fidget. Some of the others tap and bang things, which she ties to being used to swiping. Children who watch a lot of YouTube, she says, are more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber.
Pearl · @lazyesis · TikTok · October 6, 2026 · A parent in Canada
She writes that she is no expert, and that they finished his math homework for the week in about 10 minutes. The line on the video says “Getting a Gen Alpha to finish his homework faster.” A voice then opens a YouTube lesson: “Today we’re gonna teach you how to do 57 plus 34,” checks 7 plus 4 and the tens, and starts again with 46 plus 49.
Amber Marie · @amber.mariee44 · TikTok · October 7, 2026 · A high school English teacher
She says a teenager told her that his little brother, about 5 or 6, does not watch cartoons or TV. He watches YouTube shorts, short pieces of shows, including ones with AI characters. A 20-to-40-minute cartoon, she says, asks a child to stay with it and understand it. A 10-to-30-second clip does not. In her class they read novels, and students have a hard time focusing, reading for a stretch, and understanding a text on grade level. She asks parents to keep toddlers and small children off short videos, or to keep that time very small. Short videos, she says, have worn on her own attention too, even though she reads all the time.
storiesbyavika · Instagram · October 14, 2026
The caption says Generation Alpha does not have a short attention span.
stas_klid_family · Instagram · October 16, 2026
The caption says a child born after 2013 is a different generation, and that Gen Alpha wants to know why. On attention, it says people criticize children for struggling to sit still and read, while those children grow up with short videos and instant information and get used to processing content quickly. It says holding their attention means communicating clearly, briefly, and engagingly. It also says friends on Roblox or Minecraft can feel as real as classmates, and that scolding them for time online rarely works.