Well, certainly not every 50-ish individual will learn to read or read well, but it's not a rare occurrence, especially in school systems that use phonetic approaches with those students (like Wilson or OG).
Oops. I meant that I met 50-ish of these kids over a period of 5-6 years or so. Many/most had IQs in the mid-40s or below (again, floor effects made it hard to calculate IQs in many of them). I thought that level was "severe" but maybe I was wrong?
No, you're right. 40s is usually considered severe, though, as you say, the precision of the assessments becomes rather loose in that range. It's not that all of them can learn to read, it's that not all of them can't learn to read, if you know what I mean. Also, if you were meeting them earlier in their school experience, they would have been expected to be even earlier in their literacy development. I'm thinking more of IQ 40-50 late adolescents, who have acquired roughly second- or third-grade reading skills, and some 50s late adolescents with grade level decoding skills.
