News |

Reading Skills Are in Sharp Decline. Rescuing Them Won’t be Easy.

Summary
Josh Wolsky
Josh Wolsky
Source
EdSurge
Nadia Tamez-Robledo

EdSurge

In Brownsville, Texas, Dolores S. Perez, affectionately known as Ms. D, is dedicating her Fridays to helping young students grapple with reading. Since she began tutoring post-pandemic, her impact has grown significantly. While she brings joy and personalized lessons to her students, recent federal data reveals a troubling trend: reading scores among fourth and eighth graders have dropped for the third consecutive assessment. As educators grapple with this decline, programs like Perez’s may hold a key to bridging the gaps in literacy skills.

The reporting linked at the bottom from EdSurge builds on the education assessment testing result news released last week. Inforum also has a story on this today more directly comparing the results from Minnesota and North Dakota, that article is also linked below. By some measures, it looks like we’re treading water, and those responsible for our education systems are attempting to shade this as rosily as they can. That’s understandable. But by other measures, it’s perfectly clear that we’re losing ground. And if we’re paying attention, all these stories are adding up to a blinking dashboard light.

https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/north-dakota-schools-see-mixed-results-in-national-education-report

EdSurge
Nadia Tamez-Robledo

EdSurge

View Source
Josh Wolsky

Josh Wolsky

Developer & Writer @TheMinot Voice, Fan of the Souris River, SavorMinot Advocate. Fortunate to be a 'former' City Council member ;)

2 Comments

Richard Watson February 6, 2025 at 8:57 am
read more, teach readers to check sources of written materials, teach vocabulary and critical thinking skills as if they were essential in all walks of life, reward literacy, challenge ignorance--begin again--nice summary Josh--and I have seen this stuff going down my entire last 15 years at MSU--where I taught speech and composition--
Josh Wolsky February 6, 2025 at 9:23 am
Thanks Rick, I think it's the result we should expect when so little content actually requires reading anymore... video and pictures are certainly easier, and we tend to gravitate toward easy, but it seems likely to bite us -- as a city, state, nation, and species if we don't arrest issue. Respectfully, JW