What is the Literacy Crisis?: Summarized

Here is a summary of the information found on the “What is the Literacy Crisis?” page:

• Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write.

  • It is also the ability to understand what one is reading.

  • “Functional illiteracy” is when someone can read and write but is unable to use those skills effectively.

    • They cannot decipher proper meaning from text.

    • Most people apart of the “Literacy Crisis” problem are functionally illiterate.

• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as The Nation’s Report Card, for grades 4, 8, and 12, reading scores have declined since 2019 for every student below the 90th percentile.

  • Scores have been consistently dropping since 2017.

• The literacy crisis is a loss of the fundamental skills of reading and writing as shown by the decline in reading scores.

NAEP graph with reading scores from 1992 to 2024