Causes of the Literacy Crisis

Written by Trevin Morley

            Throughout my research of the potential causes of the literacy crisis, I found that we cannot place blame on a singular issue. What has led to the literacy crisis in America is a complex combination of issues, ranging from the education system to technology and generative artificial intelligence, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Education System

              In 2022, education journalist Emily Hanford released what would become a critically acclaimed podcast series called “Sold a Story.” Throughout the podcast series, Hanford breaks down how many school districts had been sold an idea of how to teach kids how to read that was counteractive to scientific evidence. The idea, developed by researcher Marie Clay, was basically a rejection of learning phonics in order to read. This led to methods of teaching reading such as using “sight words.” This is where kids are taught to read based on context cues throughout a story. Essentially, a teacher would cover a word in a sentence and have the kids guess what the word was based on what was happening in the story. Another way is having the student look at a picture and the first letter of a word and then have them guess what the word is. These methods of teaching reading seem to only work for kids who have the right combination of a well-off socioeconomic status, an engaged parent who prioritizes further at-home instruction, and potentially, a heritable inclination for reading. Hanford adds to this by stating “Some kids do figure it out. They don’t need much instruction. But a whole bunch of research shows this is not actually true for most kids. They need to be taught how to read. It doesn’t happen naturally through exposure to books” (Hanford). As Hanford alludes to, the “sight words” method is not teaching kids how to read, it is teaching kids to guess. It is a method of consumption rather than technique. When kids are taught “sight words,” they are taught how to memorize words and regurgitate them, which means they will have trouble in the future learning more difficult and longer words.

            This method of teaching reading creates a large gap between those students who read well and everyone else. As I have mentioned in “What is the Literacy Crisis,” the NAEP scores show that reading scores are dropping for everyone below the 90th percentile. This means that students in the 90th percentile are receiving adequate instruction that works well for them, and the other students aren’t. Hanford states that if students aren’t able to catch up by first-grade, then there is a small chance that they will ever catch up. She further states the reasoning for this is “because of this thing that’s been dubbed the Matthew Effect. It’s a biblical reference. Basically, when it comes to reading, the rich get richer. If you get off to a good start, you tend to like reading more. You tend to do it more. And the more you read, the better you get at reading” (Hanford). If a student is struggling to learn how to read, then they won’t have any enjoyment or satisfaction in reading, therefore halting them from becoming a proficient reader in adulthood. The education system must invest in lessening the gap between those in the 90th percentile and those in every other percentile.

Covid-19 Pandemic

There is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic really shook things up in education, but oftentimes people will say that it is the primary cause of the literacy crisis, and I don’t believe that to be true. I see the pandemic as more of an aggravator of the other causes. There is also the fact that literacy scores began declining in 2017, long before the pandemic begun. The pandemic definitely contributed by having students learn in an environment full of distractions. It also made technology the primary mechanism for learning, meaning that students and teachers had to find new ways to learn and teach respectively. The pandemic was a big change for society, but it simply brought to light the problems we were already facing when it came to literacy. So, when we talk about the causes of the literacy crisis, we should focus on the ones that we can find solutions for.

Technology & AI

Since generative artificial intelligence was widely introduced, it has reached its way into education. Students will use it to “help” them or cheat their way through assignments. Teachers will use it to create assignments or grade them. And some college classes are even dedicated to teaching students how they can properly integrate the use of AI into their lives. More so than education, AI is now everywhere you go that it seems inescapable. I feel quite biased when it comes to AI. I struggle to see any benefits when it has taken so much away from human creativity and learning. When a student uses AI in order to help them with an assignment or do an assignment for them, they are not allowing their brain to work through a problem and therefore are not actually learning anything. Researchers at MIT did a study on what happens to one’s brain when using ChatGPT to complete an essay. They had three groups, one using ChatGPT, one using a search engine, and one using only their brains. Their findings were that “Brain connectivity systematically scaled down with the amount of external support: the Brain‑only group exhibited the strongest, widest‑ranging networks, Search Engine group showed intermediate engagement, and LLM assistance elicited the weakest overall coupling” (Kos’myna). This illuminates the fact that using AI does not offer any benefit when it comes to education, especially literacy. Literacy is a skill that constantly needs to be worked on in order for you to be proficient at it. If a student is using AI to write essays or even summarize long texts, they are hindering that skill.

            Another form of technology that could hinder the development of literacy is short-form content on social media. Since the invention of TikTok, every other social media platform has also created ways to produce short-form content on their apps. Much like AI, this kind of content has become inescapable. Short-form content offers a quick boost to serotonin levels, making it addictive and potentially causing academic procrastination. In a study published in the National Library of Medicine, researchers found that “according to the temporal motivation theory, people tend to prefer tasks that offer quicker rewards when time is limited and postpone those with more distant rewards” (Xie et al.). When a student needs to write an essay, they may lose interest quickly and turn to their phone for that quick serotonin boost instead of completing the essay in a timely manner. It makes sense, writing is a difficult task that requires a lot of brain power. However, if we keep turning to our phones to relieve us of that difficulty, then writing will only get harder and literacy skills will continue to decline.

Works Cited

Hanford, Emily. “Transcript of Sold a Story E1: The Problem.” Www.apmreports.org, 20 Oct. 2022, www.apmreports.org/episode/2022/10/20/sold-a-story-e1-the-problem.

Kos’myna, Nataliya. “Project Overview ‹ Your Brain on ChatGPT – MIT Media Lab.” MIT Media Lab, 2025, www.media.mit.edu/projects/your-brain-on-chatgpt/overview/.

Xie, Jin et al. “The effect of short-form video addiction on undergraduates' academic procrastination: a moderated mediation model.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 14 1298361. 15 Dec. 2023, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1298361