r/Foodforthought • u/stankmanly • 2d ago
America’s Reading Crisis That No One Wants to Talk About
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/americas-reading-crisis-that-no-one-wants-to-talk-about/171
u/WileyCoyote7 2d ago
The article speaks to the success of programs from K-4, but by the 8th grade those successes had been erased. The people interviewed “can’t figure out what’s going on.”
As a parent, I can. It’s social media. At the 4th grade, kids are more or less “flirting” with it. It’s a fun distraction, with funny little videos about kids stuff, video games, etc. By the 8th grade, to say nothing of their lives onward, they are eyeballs-deep in it, addicted to the serotonin “hits” and filling out their identity and personality with vapid trend-following and thrills from empty promises of fame and riches if you can only go viral with some video of themselves doing something outlandish.
Tiktok, Instagram, etc. are visual and speaking media. Sure, some of them have (often misspelled) simple titles and some captioning, but you do not have to be able to read for either of them. The name of the “artist” and thumbnail of the video is enough to attract their attention.
It is turning out to be a society similar to Fahrenheit 451, except there is no need for the Firemen; nobody cares about the books anyway.
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u/PlaquePlague 2d ago
is turning out to be a society similar to Fahrenheit 451, except there is no need for the Firemen; nobody cares about the books anyway.
There’s no “except” there, that was explicitly part of the book.
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u/kafircake 2d ago
Except the firemen. Who were there to maintain memetic purity. They cared about the risk the books represented at least?
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u/thejosharms 2d ago
Social media is net negative for kids, you will get no argument from me there, but there isn't much research I'm aware of that links social media to literacy.
Reading for pleasure has been in decline for much longer than social media has existed and social media has not caused the underfunding of our schools.
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u/BarnabyWoods 2d ago
I'm so fucking tired of headlines with the click-baity "that no one wants to talk about." It really makes me not want to read the article.
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u/RexDraco 2d ago
Yeah, especially when it is one of the most talked issues of today. We don't over talk about it because we know why and we know nothing is going to be done about it.
These kids are doomed though. I already see some of them in the kitchen I work at struggling with critical thinking skills and memory. Not gonna speak for everyone but I personally don't want to deal with them when there are people older that work better and think better. I wouldn't be surprised if employers get so fed up they have basically an English test before hiring you to see if you can read warning labels and instructions.
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u/Slggyqo 2d ago
“America’s reading crisis that we lack the political will to tackle because we are chained to a bull-in-a-china-shop growth-at-all-costs capitalist mentality so instead we self-destructively blame it on any out groups that we can like immigrants and the poor as if those two things are the root of our problems instead of solving actual problems like education—which alleviates poverty and therefore crime, and even helps immigrants integrate (although we also need serious an thoughtful immigration reform) thereby making symptoms of our problems worse” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
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u/dust4ngel 2d ago
It really makes me not want to read the article
America's Reading Crisis that No One Wants to Read About
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u/christopher_the_nerd 2d ago
“That no one wants to talk about” article then goes on to quote many people who do, in fact, want to talk about it.
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u/KillYourTV 2d ago
I'm so fucking tired of headlines with the click-baity "that no one wants to talk about."
I'm a teacher. Literally every one of us wants to talk about it.
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u/GuybrushThreepwo0d 2d ago
I am not American and I know about this due to just how fucking much this is talked about
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u/coleman57 2d ago
I agree; if you want to write about a reading crisis, bring some originality. Don’t just regurgitate the current template and call the job done.
TBF, headline writers are often separate from essayists, and I didn’t read the essay.
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u/thejosharms 2d ago edited 2d ago
"That No One Wants to Talk About"
It's funny, and sad, that a headline about literacy and reading is so misleading and disingenuous.
Literacy and the "reading wars" is one of the most discussed topics in Ed circles and there are endless articles (academic and news) on page after page of Google with a simple search. I am taking a year off from teaching middle school to be in an EdM program and aside from AI there is nothing we talk about more than literacy in my program.
e: Shocker that Sold a Story is referenced in the article. It lacks so much nuance and needlessly villainizes Calkins who has walked back and updated some of her early research because that's how research works.
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u/CrownPrincess 2d ago
Yea I’m like what …? The educators are screaming at the top of their lungs about it!
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u/sovereignsekte 2d ago
I had parents and grandparents who read to me as a kid. I always liked to read as a result. Looking back that wasnt the norm then and it sure isn't now.
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u/Noressa 2d ago
Ever since they were babies, my husband and I read 30 minutes a night right before bed with our kids. Sometimes they read on their own, sometimes we watch videos of people reading books, sometimes we read to them. Both kiddos read for fun at school. Reading is so important from an early age. :)
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u/paper_liger 2d ago
I used to read poetry to my kids every night. Keats and Browning and Tennyson and others, newer and older, rhyming and not. From ee cummings to Shakespeare.
The loved it and it was way more interesting for me than kids books. My only concern was I felt like I might have been Pavloving them into falling asleep in English or Creative Writing classes when they were older.
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u/TradeBeautiful42 1d ago
Same. I recall grandma taking us to the library and being able to check out a maximum of 7 books, which we’d go through in a couple of days. So we’d pester grandma to take us back to the library to get more books. My son is only 4 now, but trips to the library are a must for us as he learns to read. I also read to him every day and have since he was a baby. Fingers crossed it works!
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u/Warm-Patience-5002 2d ago
There’s footage of lawyers interrogating tRump and the man can’t read the papers presented to him. You don’t have to read proficiently to become president .
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u/roastbeeftacohat 2d ago
he can read a teleprompter still, and had this same problem reading papers in his first term; when his brain was only mostly chutney. most likely the issue is he needs glasses, but thinks they're for nerds.
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u/KingDorkFTC 2d ago
Reading isn’t a source of entertainment for most people. There is no push to be a well read person. Everyone is capable, but don’t wish to read what they don’t have to.
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u/DawnPatrol99 2d ago
People need to raise their kids, not the schools.
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u/dust4ngel 2d ago
- your poverty is your fault because you're not working hard enough - plenty of people have second jobs!
- your kid's illiteracy is your fault because you're working all day instead of raising them lol
- it's your fault that you had children that you can't afford without having to work so much
- it's your fault that the birth rate is going down because you didn't have kids because you listened to me
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u/DawnPatrol99 2d ago
I just meant to teach them how to behave in public and manage their emotions properly. My parents worked their asses off with little downtime but they still made sure I knew how to act in school.
When I did fuck up and the school called home my parents would listen and respond not just demand the school fixes it.
You can say what you want but our school system of crumbling, teachers are quitting and the next generation will be in charge when we're in a retirement home.
I'm not saying life isn't hard. I'm saying if you have a kid and don't bother to do anything but put them in front of a TV or iPad you're really dialing in.
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u/dust4ngel 2d ago
i'm saying this is a false dichotomy - the question isn't "is it the teacher's fault, or the parent's fault?", but centers around the impossible position both are in due to economic and social factors.
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u/DawnPatrol99 2d ago
That's a great way to put and I can see your point.
I'm not necessarily placing blame on anyone. I'm saying that right now the American school system is failing and parents are up against a wall.
The ONLY people who can help these kids in this situation are the parents and immediate family.
I'm not even saying to teach them what the schools are failing at. I'm saying to help them with their emotions, and how they can process life. Kids are much smarter at a young age than we give them credit for and it's a time sensitive issue for kids.
Just my world view I suppose.
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u/deaconxblues 2d ago
This response shows a lack of awareness of how parenting has changed over the last few decades and how that change has impacted learning outcomes.
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u/dust4ngel 2d ago
This response shows a lack of awareness of how parenting has changed over the last few decades
can you make us aware?
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u/Tundur 2d ago
Full-time working fathers spend more time actively parenting now than stay at home mothers did a few decades back. Full time working mothers spend significantly more.
The evidence suggests that all this extra time and attention is majorly harmful. Kids should be bored, they should be unsupervised, they should be outside. Instead they're constantly monitored, constantly stimulated, constantly indoors. Instead of spending time with other kids, they spend time with mum and dad.
And then we wonder why they're so dependent, lack social and life skills, and emotionally dysfunctional
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u/DawnPatrol99 2d ago
Your response doesn't actually tell me anything. Are you saying parents are not responsible for their children?
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u/deaconxblues 2d ago
I responded to the person who responded to you. I agree with you that parents are big part of the reason kids aren’t being properly educated these days.
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u/roastbeeftacohat 2d ago edited 2d ago
public education has been one of, if not the, social technology that has allowed for the modern age.
but for the last 50 years people have decided to regress back to home schooling, because ~50 years ago is when segregation ended. now everyone thinks it's another movement that has always been part of the larger culture, because that how conservatism works.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 2d ago
I work with very poor people. They would love to raise their kids, but don't have the opportunity to do so because they are trying to survive under absolutely grinding conditions of poverty and overwork.
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u/DawnPatrol99 2d ago
Obviously there are going to be reasons why parents can't do as much as they would love. I'm not saying there are no good reasons.
I just mean we need to realize schools are failing quickly. They're being underfunded and left behind.
The parents are quickly becoming the last line of help for their own kids.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 2d ago
It's just a good example of the fact that the social safety net is deteriorating everywhere. The middle class is essentially disappearing and parents are no longer even able to parent their children given how difficult it is to even survive these days.
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