Confronting the Overlapping Literacy Crises in America | Opinion

Alarm bells are tolling for students of all ages and literacy levels, from trends in COVID-19 recovery, to fundamental reading pedagogy, to reading in higher education, to the features of cognition itself. When it comes to discussing the current literacy crisis in the United States, we have a classic reading comprehension problem—an ambiguous reference. Why? Because there isn't just one current literacy crisis, but many overlapping crises.

"Today's literacy crisis" could refer to the learning loss stemming from COVID-19 disruptions, which accelerated existing negative trends in American students' reading proficiency, with particularly pronounced effects and slower recovery among students in high-poverty districts. Results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress are the most dire yet. Not only is COVID-19 learning loss not recovering, but it's getting worse. One out of every three eighth graders has a reading level "below basic," the lowest mark since the assessment was introduced 30 years ago. The results are even worse for younger students; four out of every 10 fourth graders is now "below basic."

"Today's literacy crisis" could refer to the dawning realization that reading itself has been mistaught for decades. Since the late 1990s, most American students have been taught to read according to an approach called balanced literacy, which de-emphasizes phonics and explicit decoding in favor of fostering pleasure in reading. While it's difficult to argue against an emphasis on a love for reading, there is mounting evidence that this approach is suboptimal at best and simply wrong at worst, leading to profound gaps in fundamental reading skills for millions of students. In a direct evaluation of the balanced literacy pedagogy, a 2020 study found that systematic phonics instruction significantly outperformed other methods in facilitating reading accuracy in elementary-age children. Balanced literacy is so widespread, and the evidence against it so powerful, that at least 31 states have passed or proposed policies mandating systematic phonics-based reading instruction.

"Today's literacy crisis" could refer to the chorus from educators across secondary and higher education that the reading abilities of today's adolescent students are dramatically limited compared to those of students from years past. In June 2023, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that reading scores for 13-year-olds dropped by four points compared to 2019. This continues a downward trend since 2012, marking the lowest reading performance for this age group in decades. And headline after headline after headline decries the ability and desire for college age students to tackle ambitious reading.

"Today's literacy crisis" could refer to twin technological assaults of technology, with the smartphone and its attention economy eroding students' ability to focus even as large language models provide ways for students to circumvent the literacy exercises that could restore that ability. A 2022 study from Common Sense Media found that daily screen time among teens grew by 17 percent in just two years, between 2019 and 2021, and that this screen time correlates with decreased sustained attention—conditions that accelerated in the pandemic. And a 2023 survey by BestColleges found that 43 percent of college students have used AI-powered writing tools, reducing the time devoted to honing writing and critical reading skills.

Despite the chorus of concern, I would argue that we are not worried enough about these issues. Why? Because native language literacy is the foundational mastery within which all subsequent understanding and skills will be learned. It is learning to learn.

It falls to all of us educators to demand rapid responses to the current reading emergency, systemic change across the teaching of reading, bringing our practices up to our most recent understanding and our students up to the fluency they're capable of. That means evidence-based teacher training programs and literacy curricula. It means providing the right support for the students most in need, like those still recovering from COVID-19 learning loss or those with language-based learning disabilities. It means clear and thoughtful policies for reading assignments and learning environments that allow for "attention hygiene" and deep, difficult learning.

While we push for broad reform in literacy education, our students need tutoring. There is simply no more effective teaching setting than 1:1. In their efforts to remediate learning loss from COVID-19, school districts across the country are learning the age-old wisdom that tutoring is the best way to learn. It is the only intervention that accelerates student learning sufficiently to address the pandemic's setbacks. A 2021 analysis from the Annenberg Institute found that tutoring yielded an average effect size equivalent to several months of additional learning per year. And if the literacy curricula at schools are flawed, tutoring is truly the only path for students to gain the skills they need to fulfill their potential.

Such a tried-and-true answer as tutoring may seem glib in the face of so many compounding challenges. But I imagine many of us would credit our own academic success to the individual teachers who most influenced us, the books they guided us through. And the more things change, as they say, the more they stay the same.

Thomas Howell is a graduate of Yale University and co-founder of Forum Education. In his role at Forum, Thomas Howell has established himself as a pioneer in the tutoring industry, overseeing activity across the entire practice—from tutor recruitment, to program design and consulting, to the collection and organization of the industry's most comprehensive prep material database, to the creation of proprietary curricula and techniques, to the architecting and development of the Forum Lens, the leading standardized test scoring and reporting technology used by top tutoring agencies nationwide.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.