Comment by noodlesUK

> The last ~15 years have seen a decline every single year in reading comprehension, to the point that ordinary middle-of-the-road books from the 80s or 90s are beyond the ability of gifted students in the same grade to understand without great difficulty.

I think this is true, but I would disagree with the statement about gifted kids. I recently had the pleasure of reading some essays produced by A-level English students at a nearby school, and I was absolutely chuffed reading them. The mediocre ones were pretty mediocre, and there was definitely some ChatGPT drivel in there, but the ones from the top of the class were genuinely wonderful. The top students were writing beautiful (and insightful) prose, far better than what I could have done at their age. Don't write off the whole generation.