There’s a serious literacy problem happening with adults and children alike. Especially in public schools, many students are far behind in their reading levels, and it only seems to be getting worse. One public school educator demonstrated the severity of the issue by sharing assignments her high school students turned in.
In a TikTok, the ninth-grade teacher showed an assignment that her students had to complete about a recent field trip. They were asked to write what they enjoyed about the trip, and those who did not attend were told to write about why they made that decision. Their responses were concerning.
Many of the students were unable to spell basic words in their assignments. They struggled with punctuation or grammar, and some of their answers were practically incomprehensible. For example, one student wrote “i enyosed the feldtrp.” Another simply wrote, “idk” for their answer, while a third was entirely indecipherable.
Not only do the students lack the ability to write intelligent answers, but it’s also clear that they didn’t care to proofread or put in any real effort into their responses.
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According to Education Weekreading scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress fell two points on average, for many students, but specifically fourth and 8th graders.
“The news is not good,” explained Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. “We are not seeing the progress we need to regain the ground our students lost during the pandemic, and when we are seeing signs of recovery, they’re mostly in math, and largely driven by high-performing students. Low performing students are struggling, especially in reading.”
Research has shown that “systematic, explicit phonic instruction” is one of the most reliable ways to teach kids how to read. However, many schools have shifted toward sight reading, or recognizing the words by their appearance.
It doesn’t help that adults are also part of this literacy crisis, with 48 million adults reading at or below the third-grade level.
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On top of the literacy crisis that we’re experiencing, the current presidential administration poses a threat to the public education system in this country. There’s nothing more frightening than a generation of kids growing up without the proper education and resources they need to learn to read and comprehend text, yet anti-intellectualism seems to be on the rise.
Literacy, once a cornerstone of education, has now become more of a privilege than a guarantee. It should be seen as a national crisis where all hands are on board to help solve this issue because the consequences will be severe and far-reaching.
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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
