What Students Are Saying About The Decline In High School Reading

Illustrations by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff This month, average reading scores for high school seniors — released by the Nation’s Report Card — fell to their lowest level since 1992. It was the first time that 12th graders had taken the test since the COVID pandemic, and the results showed a widening gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving students. While it may be tempting to chalk up the decline in reading skills to COVID learning loss, the scores continue a slide that predates the pandemic, according to Martin West, academic dean and a... “American students’ literacy skills peaked in roughly the middle of the last decade and have fallen significantly since that time,” he said. In this episode of “Harvard Thinking,” host Samantha Laine Perfas, along with West and other guests, discuss what might be driving the decline and possible strategies for reversing it.

West brought up one theory, sparked by a recent report that showed a dwindling number of teens are reading for pleasure. “What could be driving that trend?” he asked. “I don’t think we have smoking gun evidence that the rise of screen-based childhood is a direct contributor to the literacy trends that we’re seeing. But I’m willing to put it very high on my list of potential suspects.” The Education Department has released a new Nation's Report Card. High school students, especially 12th graders, are reading and learning math and science at historic lows, according to a new report from the National Assessment of Education Progress.

The new report, known as the Nation's Report Card, was released Monday by the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, and the Department of Education. It is the first nation's report card to be released since the coronavirus pandemic. The report shows almost half of high school seniors are now testing below basic levels in math and reading, and approximately 35% are at or above a proficient reading level, while 32% of them... By comparison, 37% of high school seniors were reading at or above proficiency in the 2019 report card, and 40% were at or above reading proficiency in 1992. Math and reading scores dropped to their lowest levels in more than two decades among high school seniors. That's according to the Nation’s Report Card put out by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

It shows that student achievement has continued to decline since the pandemic. There are many theories about what’s going on, and William Brangham explored some of that with Thomas Kane. Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Math and reading scores have dropped to their lowest levels in more than two decades among high school seniors. William Brangham reports on new test scores that have many educators and other experts concerned.

That's right, Amna. These scores come from the latest so-called Nation's Report Card, which is put out by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and it shows that student achievement has continued to decline significantly since the... By Barbara Gutierrez bgutierrez@miami.edu 12-05-2025 As Dr. Seuss once put it: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

Reading provides knowledge and understanding of the world, of ourselves, and of different cultures. It can promote empathy, help develop critical-thinking skills, and transport the reader to places they would never travel to. Yet reading for pleasure is on the decline in the United States. This is particularly acute among middle and high school children. In 2023, only 14 percent of 13-year-olds reported reading for fun almost every day, a substantial drop from 27 percent in 2012, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that in 2022, only 48.5 percent of adults had read at least one book for pleasure the prior year.

According to an earlier NEA-backed survey in 2017, it was around 53 percent of adults. U.S. students remain nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in math and reading, according to a new scorecard released by Stanford. An education professor from Stanford weighs in. A decade-long slide in high schoolers' reading and math performance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 12th graders' scores dropping to their lowest level in more than 20 years, according to results released Tuesday... Eighth-grade students also lost significant ground in science skills, according to the results from the National Assessment of Education Progress.

Stream San Diego News for free, 24/7, wherever you are with NBC 7. The assessments were the first since the pandemic for eighth graders in science and 12th graders in reading and math. They reflect a downward drift across grade levels and subject areas in previous releases from NAEP, which is considered one of the best gauges of the academic progress of U.S. schools. “The reading skills of American high school seniors are the worst they have been in three decades, according to new federal testing data,” Dana Goldstein writes in “Reading Skills of 12th Graders Hit a... We asked students for their reaction.

There was a strong consensus: They were alarmed, but not surprised. Teenagers from across the country told us they see the decline firsthand in their classrooms. They pointed to a combination of factors, including lost learning during the pandemic, the overwhelming workload of modern high school, lowered academic standards and, most of all, the relentless pull of screens that has,... But they didn’t just diagnose the problem; they voiced urgent concerns for the future, warning of a crisis where a generation is left unprepared to understand politics, get a job or read a legal... They also made suggestions for how schools, teachers, parents and students themselves could address the problem. Thank you to all who joined the conversation this week, including students from Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, Ill., and Vanden High School in Fairfield, Calif.

It does not surprise me that a third of 12th graders tested lack basic reading skills. I think the decrease in these reading skills says a lot about how our generation is changing. Many of us have grown up surrounded by screens, and it’s hard to stay focused on long texts when everyone online moves so fast. For me, I’ve noticed that reading a whole book feels harder than it used to — I get distracted or want to check my phone… Many teenagers struggle with basic reading skills. But middle and high schools don’t always have structures in place to support them.

Now, some educators are trying to change that, bringing the “science of reading” to older students. Last month, Education Week profiled Bow Memorial School, a middle school in New Hampshire that has launched a “structured literacy” program for students in grades 5-8 who need support with foundational reading skills, like... Bow is at the forefront of a growing movement to provide more systematic and targeted support to struggling readers in older grades. Creating a program like this can be difficult at the secondary level, where school schedules usually don’t include time for extra reading classes and teachers are trained as content-area specialists—not reading experts. Still, more schools are starting to tackle the challenge.

People Also Search

• What Students Are Saying About the Decline in High School Reading ...
• What's driving decline in U.S. literacy rates? — Harvard Gazette
• US students' reading and math scores at historic lows: 'Devastating ...
• What's caused reading scores to drop to worst point in decades ...
• High School Students' Reading, Math Scores Hit New Low
• Reading for pleasure is plummeting in the US - news.miami.edu
• High school reading and math scores hit 20-year low - NBC 7 San Diego
• 'Nation's report card' shows students continue to academically decline
• Many Teens Lack Basic Reading Skills. These Teachers Are Trying to ...