rilly wanna smack some parents

Dude.  There is no excuse.  No. Excuse.  For a 10 year old child being completely unable to read.  I'm talking "has a hard time identifying which sounds go with which letters" unable-to-read.

And you know what?  It wouldn't be so bad if the kid actually cared and actually wanted to work, but oh my sweet monkey jebus, getting this kid to do work is like pulling teeth.  From a rock.

Actual dialogue from work tonight:

Me:  "So here we've got the letter combination 'sm.'"
Kid:  "Yeah."
Me:  "Can you tell me any words that begin with 'sm'?"
Kid:  *long, long pause, during which time he looks all around the class, then periodically back to me to see if I'm still paying attention; I AM*  ...I dunno.  Whatever.
Me:  *counts to ten, stays positive*  What do you do when someone takes a picture of you?
Kid:  Oh.  Uh.  Smile.

NO JOKE.  This went on for the first whole hour of the session.  Mind you, I'm meant to be dividing my time up equally among 3 kids.  This one was SUCH a time-sucker.  I'd ask him to do something while I worked with the other kids, and when I got back to him, he'd done nothing.  And when I say, "do something" it's like, "Please write down three words that begin with the letters 'st.'"

Me:  "...You haven't done any of your work yet?"
Kid:  "Yeah, I don't know how to do it."
Me:  ".............."

DUDE.  KILL ME NOW.