"Average reading scores for fourth-grade students in 2024 dropped two points since 2022 and five points since 2019, as measured by the so-called nation's report card. But according to a recent talk at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, the trend of American children reading below their grade levels stretches back decades before the pandemic - and teaching methods that fail to adequately challenge students, counterintuitive as it may seem, could be the culprit."
""There's been a theory in reading education for about 100 years that if we're going to be successful, we have to teach students at their level." After years of testing ideas about "what 'their level' meant," he said, educators arrived at a kind of consensus: Students are asked to read supposed grade-level passages and are then tested on their comprehension of them."
Average reading scores for fourth-grade students in 2024 dropped two points since 2022 and five points since 2019. Data back to 1969 show no sustained improvement in U.S. children's literacy despite rising literacy demands over five decades. A longstanding premise in reading education has been to teach students at their assessed 'level' by using supposed grade-level passages and testing comprehension. That practice reduces challenge and leaves limited opportunities for learning. A proposed strategy is to present more challenging texts while providing appropriate tools and supports. One specific recommendation is to stop pre-teaching vocabulary so texts remain instructional.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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