That goes the other way too: Pretty much anyone who doesn't develop good reading skills, at least somewhat, won't read for pleasure. Past a certain age, there

That goes the other way too: Pretty much anyone who doesn't develop good reading skills, at least somewhat, won't read for pleasure. Past a certain age, there are no interesting things to read that are also readable for a person with weak skills. You won't find a romance novel with a vocabulary like The Cat and the Hat. Correcting the problem is not cost-effective for a school. I did it once, for a 14-year-old I cared about. I had him read college-level science textbooks out loud. At first, I had to correct him every few words, repeatedly explaining phonetical rules and insisting on proper phrasing. ("You just blew past that comma.", or "There was no comma or period. Try again.") This tedious routine went on for several chapters. No normal school will do that for a child.