What happens when a high school student who struggles to read graduates? They are likely to become an adult who still struggles to read.
A recent article by the Hill emphasizes the detrimental impacts of illiteracy not just in childhood, but into adulthood and across generations: “Studies have shown that low literacy rates exacerbate everything from poverty and health care to low civic engagement.”
The lasting effects of illiteracy are too grave for us to continue as we have for decades. We must reevaluate the way we teach foundational literacy skills in the U.S. education system.
Traditionally, foundational literacy instruction is focused on grades Pre-K through third grade. That means even though teachers in upper elementary, middle and high school may notice their students struggling to comprehend grade-level texts, they are not trained or resourced to teach foundational literacy skills. They also have limited access to assessment tools that both identify the students who are struggling to read and pinpoint why.
There are many reasons why learners are struggling to read. One main reason is readers cannot sufficiently decode the increasingly complex words they encounter in middle and high school. Decoding is a foundational literacy skill where students break down and sound out novel words to understand them. In 2024, ETS and AERDF published a study that confirmed a decoding threshold: a critical level of decoding skills needed to read and understand grade-level texts. Older students with low decoding skills who fall below this threshold also tend to have low reading comprehension.
Whether you’re an educator, researcher, or policy maker, the implications of this study are far reaching and urge us to rethink how we address illiteracy in this country. AERDF’s program, Reading Reimagined, is investigating and co-designing solutions that will help end illiteracy, so all learners have the opportunity to be confident, proficient readers in school, at work, and beyond.
Read the article here.
