Many of us had hoped that the 2024 NAEP reading assessment results would offer evidence that students had recovered from the pandemic slump and were back on track. The opposite, alas, is the case. Eighth grade students in every state scored worse in reading comprehension than they had in 2022, worse than they have in 30 years. Most alarmingly, the steepest score declines were from our lowest performing students. The gap between academic haves and have-nots has become a chasm.
You can view many charts and graphs of state-by-state and subgroup results at: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/ (If you have tears left, prepare to shed them now.)
The 8th graders who were tested in 2024 are currently in our 9th grade classrooms, most likely struggling not only with reading in English but across the curriculum, including in math. Blaming the screen age is too easy. For one, we are as guilty as our students of succumbing to the temptation to substitute scrolling for deep reading. For another, these screens will become only more ubiquitous in the days to come.
To suggest the need for a corrective is an understatement. We need a revolutionary return to reading – reading for pleasure, reading for information, reading to understand ourselves and others. I believe students are hungry for rigorous, engaging curriculum but too often are fed pablum that underestimates their intelligence. We need to enlist students themselves in this work. English class shouldn’t be something we do to teenagers but rather a vehicle for building reading and writing muscles while engaging in intriguing work. The goal isn’t a completed book or essay (both of which are easy to fake in the age of AI); it’s becoming a literate adult who not only can but actually chooses to read.
To accomplish this, we need students to come to class. Every day. NAEP survey results revealed that 26% of students are chronically absent, that is, they are missing 4-5 days of school per month. When students miss this much school, they are always a bit off-balance. They can feel they are missing key pieces of the lesson. It’s a Swiss cheese experience of the curriculum.
The other survey data that depresses me is the news that students who score in the lowest percentiles report that they “never or hardly ever” read for fun. Helping students develop the habit of reaching for a book when they are bored can be a first step to pleasure reading, particularly if they have a wide range of titles to choose from. Volume matters when it comes to reading proficiency. We get good at what we do. The solution cannot be to make the books we offer students easier or funnier but rather to teach them what to do when the going gets rough. One protocol I learned from primary school colleagues was the “Think Aloud.” By demonstrating how good readers almost always struggle in the first paragraphs of a novel with syntax, vocabulary, tone and setting, teachers convey to inexpert readers that working through textual challenges is normal. Everyone has questions when entering an unfamiliar fictional world.
We also need to create a classroom atmosphere where independent reading is the norm and talking about that reading happens all the time. This could mean allotting classroom time for reading books of their own choosing or making literature circles an integral part of the curriculum throughout the school year. Reading for pleasure increases a reader’s background knowledge, not because the reader is taking notes but rather through osmosis. Students who read more, know more and, as a result of knowing more, find reading easier, more pleasurable. It’s a virtuous cycle. For a deeper dive into this aspect of reading comprehension, I highly recommend Kelly Gallagher’s latest book, To Read Stuff, You Need to Know Stuff: Helping Students Build and Use Prior Knowledge (Heinemann 2024).
Let’s help one another rise to this challenge and turn those scores around by nurturing a generation of avid readers.
Carol Jago has taught English in public schools for 32 years and is associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She served as president of the National Council of Teachers of English and as chair of the College Board’s English Academic Advisory Committee. She has also served on the National Assessment Governing Board which oversees NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card.
Carol has published many books with Heinemann including Cohesive Writing: Why Concept Is Not Enough, The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis along with books on contemporary multicultural authors for NCTE. She is a consulting author to HMH Into Reading, a K-6 reading program and for HMH Into Literature, a 6-12 literature program.
Carol has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Association of Teachers of English and was the recipient of the National Council of Teachers of English Squire Award given to honor an individual who has had a transforming influence and has made a lasting intellectual contribution to the profession.
