A Fractured Narrative: Cracking Open the Spine of Our National Literary Crisis
When’s the last time you read a book?
If your answer is “Not recently,” then you aren’t alone.
There’s a variety of data suggesting that national literacy is on the decline. As of late 2023, ACT test scores, which factor in reading comprehension skills, fell to their lowest in thirty years. In fact, based on the ACT’s reading score system, aimed at anticipating first-year college success, the average student is not on track to succeed in their higher academic pursuits. Middle school students are similarly suffering, with average reading test scores for thirteen year olds dropping four points and reaching a twenty-year low.
The trends noticed amongst student test scores are accentuated by a national downturn in reading habits. A Gallup poll surrounding adult reading behaviors found that the average number of books read by Americans per year has dropped from 15.6 to 12.6, the lowest it’s been in thirty years. Furthermore, the poll found that college graduates, who read more on average, are now seeing the largest reading decrease.
To most people, these numbers might signal nothing more than an oncoming headache, but they’re also a crucial indication of negative changes within our society. We’re witnessing an appalling decline in American reading abilities–one that's contributing to an ever-growing literary divide.
Reading Between the Lines
Experts aren’t sure what to hold responsible for the decline in nationwide literacy. Some posit that decreased attention spans are to blame, which certainly could be the case. Evidence suggests that the average person is far more distractible than they were in the past, possibly due to increased technology use. A study run by psychologist Gloria Mark, focusing on the issue of distractibility, found that people’s attention spans have dropped from several minutes in 2003 to just 47 seconds. Falling attention spans could likely account for the dip in the number of books read per year, and they could also explain why the page counts of national bestsellers are steadily declining.
Social media is another well-studied factor in the decline in literacy. A global study of teachers indicated that social media was the main cause of reading levels dropping amongst students. Additionally, other research has found that students tend to read less when they use social media more regularly. These statistics seem to track with the steady decline of literacy in the 21st century. In a world of constant digital stimulation, what use is a worn-down novel?
Another obvious reason for the decline is the pandemic. Test scores dropped sharply during COVID-19, and the long-term impacts of school closures, like higher absenteeism, are only contributing to the problem. Looking at the numbers, it's clear the impacts of the pandemic on literacy cannot be understated.
Bibliophobia
Though many of these causes appear fairly surface-level, there’s one major influence that seems particularly peculiar, and that influence is stereotypes.
In a society that often preaches self-improvement, it’s strange to think that peer pressure keeps people from reading, and yet, that is often the case. Avid readers face stigmas about their literary habits frequently, something which in many cases, causes them to lose their love for books. These kinds of stereotypes are especially prevalent among men. One study found that boys who encountered the stereotype that men shouldn’t read from peers and educators felt less incentivized to read due to the way this belief hurt their self-esteem. A similar study found that in classrooms where teachers placed stronger emphasis on gender roles, emphasizing male leadership and female domesticity, boys tended to be worse at reading.
Absurd stereotypes like these might seem harmless, and yet evidence suggests they may be shifting literary dynamics. There is a clear gender gap forming in the world of books, with current projections indicating that soon, men in nearly all countries will read less than women. Stereotypes are certainly part of the reason for this split, though the rise of gaming popularity is likely a contributing factor. And while some might consider this emerging divide to be an inevitability, born of an entanglement between technology and toxic masculinity, it's hard not to see this as a step backwards as well. Our society seems to be steadily forgetting the vast importance of reading, which is an agonizing twist to witness because it’s not just a skill that helps people sharpen their cognitive abilities or a vessel to obtain greater professional success. Literacy gives an individual something far more valuable than the appearance of gender conformity: power.
A Page Out of His Book
There is no greater example of the power of literacy than that of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was enslaved from his birth in 1818, and fell upon literacy when sent to work for Hugh Auld, a Baltimore ship-builder. Auld’s wife, Sophia, initially began to teach Douglass to read, but quickly stopped after being told off by her husband. After that point, she became needlessly strict with Douglass about reading, even snatching a newspaper away from him once in anger. Despite all of this, Douglass put in effort to learn to read. As a means of getting instruction, he would befriend poor white children and secretly enlist their aid by offering them bread. He risked everything to get educated, and in the end, it was worth it. Douglass went on to write three autobiographies, the first of which was the widely popular Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. This autobiography became a vastly influential work in the realm of slavery, attaining global acclaim and making Douglass a major name in the abolitionist movement. Douglass’s eloquence and clarity of speech, fueled by his love for reading, helped dismantle long-held ideas about the inferiority of enslaved individuals in the minds of the white populace, thus paving the path to freedom.
The life of Frederick Douglass highlights the flaws of modern society. In a world where books are so accessible and children are free to read if they wish, why do we choose to hinder them with pointless stereotypes? Reading is not “girly,” as some peers and educators might suggest. It’s a skill that has historically come with quite a few risks, one that people have strived for even when the world has pushed them down. Our society has no place engaging in mockery of those who push themselves to be more literate. Seeing the struggles that Douglass went through to achieve literacy is enough to make a person ashamed of their country for shifting so far from seeing the good in education to just belittling those who are interested in attaining it.
Beyond the efforts that Douglass put in to learn to read, his writing achievements seem particularly relevant to the present day. Being literate gave Douglass a voice by which to express himself, and he used this voice to express his socio-political opinions publicly. In 2024, a year of great electoral significance, public expression is vital, and making sure that everyone has the literary abilities necessary to articulate their views is more important than ever.
In the Margins
Barrelling toward the 2024 election, we can see how much we should value nationwide literacy. Basic literacy is vital to the electoral process. Those who lack the ability to read often encounter difficulties in registration and ballot comprehension, and research shows that areas of low literacy often have lesser voter turnout overall. Furthermore, undereducated individuals tend to have lower critical thinking skills, which can make them more receptive to fake news and conspiracy theories and lead to reduced understanding of current political issues in a group which already has difficulty in the electoral process.
Additionally, the last few years have seen a rise in laws aimed at disenfranchising illiterate voters, such as laws barring volunteers from offering aid to those who may need it and preventing assistants from explaining verbose ballot language. Laws such as these are attempts to create insurmountable barriers to voting, and with 20% of the American population being illiterate, they’re capable of disenfranchising a large portion of the electorate.
The example of Frederick Douglass once again seems valuable here. Douglass, along with many other enslaved people nationwide, was prevented from reading not just because he was believed to be incapable of learning, but because slave owners thought that literacy allowed enslaved people to organize and rebel. Throughout the 1800s, many anti-literacy laws were created to prevent African Americans, both free and enslaved, from being able to read, all in the hopes of keeping them from taking their rightful place in American society. The impact of these laws is still felt today in marginalized communities, and the fact that politicians continue to work to disenfranchise voters, many of whom remain illiterate because of the lasting effects of slavery-era policies, is a sign of the necessity for reform.
The disproportionate nature of literacy is not just seen in voters, but in students as well. Research indicates that children from low-income families, as well as racial minorities, felt the effects of pandemic-era school closures keenly when it came to literacy. During the pandemic, MAP test reading scores in high-poverty schools dropped triple the amount that they did in low-poverty schools. Furthermore, Black and Hispanic students saw their scores drop almost double that of white students.
One explanation for this widening gap is the inequitable division of resources between schools with greater minorities and predominantly-white schools. For example, predominantly-white schools tend to have less early-career teachers, suggesting that teachers at these schools may be better equipped to deal with the reading challenges posed by the pandemic and the distracting influence of social media. Moreover, teachers are not immune to the influences of racial prejudice, which can lead to less attention being given to marginalized students and reduced education quality for those who need it the most.
Finally, financial stressors are often an influence on student reading habits and performance. Intuitively, this makes sense. When you have to worry about when your next meal will be and keeping the lights on, you’re probably not too motivated to do your Little Women reading assignment. The ever-widening gap between minority and non-minority students when it comes to literacy signals the necessity of equity in education, and it's something we can’t keep ignoring.
Falling into Action
Analyzing the fall of national literacy is like looking at America through a microscope. As we peer into the lens, we can see every major problem magnified. We can watch the pandemic squirm around in our petri dish, infecting the education system with inefficiency. We can witness the fungal growth of social media, rotting our brains and spoiling our literary pastimes. And perhaps worst of all, we can see our helpless youth, many of whom are already burdened by poverty and marginalization, struggling against the virulent hatred for reading that plagues our society.
Poring over the issue of literacy decline might make our problems easier to see, but it doesn’t make them easier to solve. Ultimately, our nation needs to make literacy more appealing and achievable, or we will continue to see a decline in reading habits.
The appeal of reading has always seemed high when no screens are present. Perhaps we need to work to reduce device use in schools, something which has been shown to reduce student performance, and go back to the old-fashioned handwritten assignment. Or we can crusade against gender roles by providing boys with male role-models who can showcase their own love for reading and give students the peace of mind they need to read without fear of judgment.
From the achievability standpoint, resources must be made available in greater amounts to those in low-income and minority communities. We must work to fund schools more equitably, and be more aware of the struggles of disadvantaged groups when it comes to becoming literate. Within schools, we must advocate for programs that focus on building foundational skills through neurologically-backed methods like phonics. Though some programs have gravitated away from phonemic awareness in favor of alternative solutions such as free-ebook access or library expansions, these methods cannot fix illiteracy at its root in the way that strengthening school reading programs can. Teaching basic phonetic sounds allows students who may need more help get the fundamentals better, and there’s evidence to suggest that it helps reduce income and ethnic gaps in reading. At the federal level, there must be efforts made to fund these types of programs. We need to improve American literacy, not just for the sake of better test scores, but because reading liberates us from the confines of collective thought and allows us to have our voices heard.
Frederick Douglass said it best: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”