Learning to read while locked up

The vast majority of students who graduated high school while detained in California's juvenile facilities in a five-year span between 2018 and 2023 did not pass a 12th grade reading assessment. In fact, over a fifth of them were reading at lower elementary-school grade levels. Now California's finally doing something about it. A new literacy intervention program is now being rolled out in San Diego, Alameda, San Mateo and Riverside counties, to help teenagers in juvenile detention grasp the basics of reading. Guests: Rosie Leyva, Literacy specialist, Alameda County Court Schools Betty Márquez Rosales, Reporter, EdSource Read more from EdSource: New multi-county initiative to tackle literacy gaps among detained high school students In California's youth justice system, many high schoolers graduate with grade-school reading skills An island of reading for youth in the California juvenile justice system Related episodes: How a library inside juvenile hall aims to break the prison pipeline Could juvenile detention centers look like college campuses? How schools can help formerly incarcerated students succeed Education Beat is a weekly podcast hosted by EdSource’s Zaidee Stavely and produced by Coby McDonald. Subscribe: Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube