The United States ranks 36th in the world at a 79% literacy rate, which is quite terrible considering the US’s status as one of the most developed nations in the world.
“Developed nations consistently boast adult literacy rates of 96% or higher, while the least developed countries struggle with an average literacy rate of just 65%,” reads the report.
In other words, the US is more Third World than First World when it comes to literacy.
While the stats are new, the trend is not. Literacy has been a national embarrassment for a while, and, judging by reading assessments of 8th graders, the immediate future of American adult literacy is bleak.
Since at least 1992, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores of 8th graders have hovered around a mere one third of students at or above proficient.
There are many factors driving illiteracy. But one of the biggest impediments has been the implementation of ineffective reading instructional techniques. These techniques are grounded in what’s known as “balanced literacy.”
The problem with balanced literacy is that it deemphasizes, or completely ignores, phonics, which would equip students with a baseline reading skill. It also emphasizes cueing, which is a mashup of guessing and word association, and independent reading time, which not only wastes valuable time that could be used on instruction while pushing kids to independently do something they can’t do (read).
In California, there was a push to implement more effective curricula, based in science-of-reading techniques (like phonics), but it failed to move forward amid significant opposition from teacher unions.
Part of the problem is that science-of-reading, while proven more effective, is seen as rote and non-progressive. But practice is nothing if not rote.
In his book The Great Classroom Collapse, PRI’s Senior Director, Education Studies, Lance Izumi writes the story of Rebeka Sinclair, a parent who came to California through Marin County. Sinclair noted that even in wealthy, elite schools in Marin County, the instruction was insufficient and students “required intensive reading support outside school.”
Sinclair also told Izumi that instead of phonics and reading practice, instruction leaned heavily into an effort to “inject a lot of critical pedagogy and the social justice theme into the books the kids were getting.”
“Teaching a child to read is the ultimate form of social justice,” Sinclair said. “The fact that these instructional methods were developed and celebrated without scientific scrutiny and then were able to be marketed and sold in a billion-dollar industry… just shows you how broken the education system is in this country.”
Besides incorporating more science-of-reading instruction, school districts should consider implementing two recommendations noted in Izumi’s book from the National Council on Teacher Quality:
- Be strategic in recruiting new teachers who have been trained in science-of-reading instruction.
- Provide professional development opportunities for teachers who are not already prepared to instruct scientifically-based reading instruction.
Matt Fleming is the Pacific Research Institute’s communications director.
