By Marc H. Morial
National Urban League President & CEO
New York City’s troubling decline in reading scores, despite one of the most ambitious literacy reform efforts in the nation, is a wakeup call for the entire nation.
Across the country, reading achievement continues to decline. Nearly 40 percent of fourth graders read below the basic level and roughly a third of eighth graders are reading below basic, the highest share ever recorded.
Taken together, these numbers reveal a national literacy crisis that threatens economic opportunity, educational equity, and our nation’s future competitiveness.
Reading is not merely another subject in school. Reading is the foundation upon which all learning rests. A child who struggles to read struggles to learn history, science, mathematics, and civics. A young person who cannot effectively read and analyze complex information faces barriers to college completion, workforce success, and informed participation in our democracy.
That is why the growing literacy crisis is fundamentally an opportunity crisis. Behind every percentage point is a child whose future opportunities hang in the balance. Persistent achievement gaps mean that Black and Latino students continue to bear a disproportionate share of the consequences when reading instruction falls short. If we are serious about economic mobility and educational justice, literacy must be at the center of the conversation.
For more than two decades, many schools embraced Balanced Literacy approaches that sought to cultivate a love of reading by putting books in students’ hands and encouraging independent reading. The approach was well-intentioned, but too often foundational skills instruction, particularly phonics and decoding, suffered.
The evidence is increasingly clear that explicit, systematic instruction helps more children become successful readers. States and school districts that are embracing these principles deserve credit for moving in the right direction. But millions of students are already in middle school, high school, and even college struggling to read complicated texts, analyze difficult arguments, and complete entire books.
What is our plan for them?
Too many students arrive in high school lacking the reading stamina necessary to engage deeply with literature, history, or complex informational texts. College professors increasingly describe students who struggle with lengthy assignments that previous generations navigated more comfortably.
To be clear, Balanced Literacy alone cannot explain these trends. Increased screen time, constant digital distractions, shortened attention spans, and the dominance of algorithm-driven content all influence students’ reading habits and learning experiences.
Yet recognizing these factors cannot become an excuse for inaction.
Instead, it should compel us to think more broadly about literacy.
The challenge before us is not simply helping children sound out words. It is helping them develop the capacity to wrestle with complex ideas, sustain attention, evaluate evidence, and build knowledge through reading. It is helping them become informed citizens and lifelong learners.
And that requires a comprehensive, systemic strategy.
We need high-quality literacy instruction beginning in early childhood settings and extending throughout elementary school. We need to strengthen early intervention so that struggling readers receive support before learning gaps become entrenched. We must carefully examine the quality and effectiveness of programs serving our youngest learners, including Head Start and other early childhood initiatives.
At the same time, we need a national commitment to literacy recovery for older students. Districts and states should be developing evidence-based strategies that help adolescents strengthen comprehension, vocabulary, knowledge-building, and engagement with complex texts. Students who fell behind during the pandemic and those who continue to struggle deserve intensive support, not lowered expectations.
We should also have serious conversations about the role of technology in children’s lives. Restricting unnecessary screen exposure, particularly in the early grades, should be part of a broader effort to rebuild reading habits and attention spans that support learning.
More concerning than the decline in reading scores is the absence of a clear, large-scale strategy to address the growing crisis. Every year that a struggling reader falls further behind increases the likelihood that they will face lifelong educational and economic disadvantages.
The recent reading results from New York City are a warning. The national NAEP results are an even louder one. Together, they tell us that incremental change is not enough.
We know more about how children learn to read than ever before. We know that literacy is the gateway to opportunity. What remains to be seen is whether we have the collective will to act with the urgency this moment demands.
Our children cannot afford for us to wait.
Based on reporting by Jackson Advocate.
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