America S Reading Crisis Reaches Alarming Tipping Point

Reading for pleasure is in "freefall" - dropping over 40% in the last 20 years, warns new research. The "deeply concerning" findings raise urgent questions about the cultural, educational and health consequences of reading less, say scientists. The study, published in the journal iScience, found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last two decades. Researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Florida analyzed data from more than 236,000 Americans. They say the findings suggest a "fundamental cultural shift" with fewer people carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment. Reading levels dropped to historic lows during the pandemic.

Now parents, teachers and tech companies are hoping AI can help solve America’s literacy crisis. America’s literacy challenge has been building for years, with reading scores sliding even before the pandemic pushed them to their lowest levels in decades. Educators said potential factors include children’s increased screen time, shortened attention spans and a decline in reading longer-form writing. Mississippi, Louisiana and other states have experimented with shaking up reading curricula and passing laws aimed at improving childhood literacy. But the rise of artificial intelligence is creating another opportunity to reimagine how students learn to read. Across the US, parents, educators, and community groups are trying AI-powered tutors that listen as children read, correct mistakes in real time and adapt lessons to each student’s reading level — though questions remain...

Denver Public Schools made headlines in recent years for embracing AI products, both as teaching tools and as teacher supports. The system of roughly 200 schools began working with Amira Learning, a company that specializes in AI reading tutors, in January. Politicians and journalists are misinterpreting the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Paul L. Thomas is a professor of education at Furman University and author of “How to End the Reading War and Serve the Literacy Needs of All Students.” After her controversial appointment, U.S.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon posted this apparently uncontroversial claim on social media: “When 70% of 8th graders in the U.S. can’t read proficiently, it’s not the students who are failing — it’s the education system that’s failing them.” Americans are used to hearing about the nation’s reading crisis. In 2018, journalist Emily Hanford popularized the current “crisis” in her article “Hard Words,” writing, “More than 60 percent of American fourth-graders are not proficient readers, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress,... Five years later, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof repeated that statistic: “One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United... According to studies by the National Literacy Institute in 2024, 21% of American adults are illiterate.

The National Assessment for Adult Literacy found the literacy rate for American adults in 1870 was a gross total of 11.5% from census data. In 1979, that number was at 0.4%. With most early estimations for literacy and education heading into the 21st century pointing towards an even further downwards trend of illiteracy, we are seeing the highest rates in 155 years. In a study done by the Kutest Kids Early Intervention organization, illiteracy accounts for $2.2 trillion dollars in taxpayer losses throughout the year. These losses come in the form of welfare, unemployment and incarceration rates; three out of every four welfare recipients are unable to read, 50% of the unemployed between 16 and 21 years old are... By Michelle Torgerson, CEO of Raising a Reader

The latest national assessment of educational progress results reveal a sobering reality: American children’s reading skills have reached new lows with little sign of post pandemic recovery. As reported in The New York Times, 40% of 4th graders and 33% of 8th graders now perform at a below basic level in reading and dash the highest percentages in decades. The implications of this literacy crisis are profound impacting students academic success future job prospects and overall well-being At Raising a Reader, we see this as a call to action for over 25 years we have worked to support families educators and those serving young children in fostering early literacy skills helping... The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results reveal a sobering reality: American children’s reading skills have reached new lows, with little sign of post-pandemic recovery. Daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last two decades.

...... read full story The reading crisis in the United States is among the most solvable problems of our time, but as we commit to the work of solving it, let’s understand how we arrived at the current... That galvanizing reality check gets even more stark when we reckon with the proficiency figure for black American kids: just 18 percent are proficient by fourth grade. The primary driver of the reading crisis is a disconnect between the overwhelming scientific evidence on reading, affirmed by researchers across decades of studies, and the still-widespread practices that have shaped what teachers know... As more and more teachers discover the research evidence and square it with what actually happens with the students in their classrooms, many find that they have to move through some guilt, and overcome...

Most refocus to find renewed hope of fulfilling their calling to open up learning for a better future when they learn that 95% of students can learn to read with structured literacy methods. It’s not the kids. It’s not the teachers. It’s the approach, and it can be changed, and the sooner, the better. Ethical individual teachers and school leaders supporting cohorts of educators have become an unstoppable movement toward reading justice for all our kids. Parents are learning what the families of dyslexic learners have known for years: it’s not enough to assume that teachers know how to teach reading or, when it’s not working, to take comfort in...

Too many do not, as the 8th-grade national scores in reading make clear. Parents, teachers, and community activists are advocating for kids whose reading potential is underserved and underestimated through racial and socioeconomic inequality, coming together to insist that reading is an undeniable civil right of our... Every child deserves the joy of learning through literacy, and the denial of that right amounts to preventable harm. Some of you reading this know, while some of you will have to imagine, what it feels like sitting through year after year of school knowing that your inability to decode words must mean... Choosing to act out behaviorally, to withdraw anxiously, to cheat elaborately, to leave altogether, becomes all too common—because these things provide a shield from the slowly unspooling trauma of being the kid who never... We at the Stern Center embrace our role as catalysts in a hopeful yet insistent change movement of parents, teachers, and leaders who are waking up to the powerful opportunity to make a difference...

Teachers are bringing their own experiences, instructional wisdom, and commitment to their students to a growing recognition of how discredited methods and implicit biases have left too many students behind. The statistics below make it plain as day: race and socioeconomic status are too often used as an excuse for reading failure, but we who embrace equity of opportunity can commit to a shared... Spencer Russell, founder of Toddlers Can Read, joins ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ to explain why more Gen Z parents are reading less to their children, and how that may be fueling a decline in... When people talk about war, they picture overseas battlefields, not elementary school hallways. But America is embroiled in a civilian crisis – a war that’s quietly destroying children’s brains and our future. The battleground is our public school system.

The casualties are the minds, dreams and potential of an entire generation. Leaving aside the tremendous indoctrination in our country’s schools in the alphabet (LGBTQIA++) ideologies, the actual alphabet has suffered. Over the past century, America’s literacy rates have cratered. A new study flags that 28% of U.S. adults perform at the lowest literacy level – around third-grade reading level. Worse still, the share of adults reading below a sixth-grade level clocks in at around 54%.

Only 42% of 9-year-olds and 17% of 13-year-olds read for pleasure "almost daily." This marks the lowest in 40 years. (Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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