Eventually, you get through the word like it's water.
Long before the pandemic disrupted classrooms, American children were quietly losing their footing with the written word — a recession in reading that researchers now trace back to policy shifts and cultural distractions of the early 2010s. COVID-19 did not create this crisis; it deepened a wound already years in the making. Yet in a handful of states and districts that returned to the cognitive science of how children learn to decode language, scores have begun to climb again, offering a measured but genuine reason for hope. The question now is whether the country has the will to make those exceptions the rule.
- Students across the U.S. are nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic reading benchmarks — and the slide began a full decade ago, long before schools closed.
- Only five states and Washington, D.C., showed meaningful reading gains between 2022 and 2025, leaving the vast majority of the country still losing ground.
- Districts like Modesto and Detroit are proving recovery is possible — through phonics mandates, intensive teacher training, and relentless attention to student attendance and consistency.
- Southern states, particularly Louisiana and Alabama, have emerged as unlikely national models by committing early and fully to research-backed instruction and teacher coaching.
- Researchers warn that adopting pieces of reform without full implementation has failed in states like Florida and Arizona, underscoring that half-measures will not reverse a decade of decline.
In a Modesto, California classroom, a disco ball spins and sixth graders dance before a test — a pre-celebration ritual their teacher uses to calm nerves and signal that learning here is taken seriously. It is a small detail, but it points to something larger: Modesto's elementary schools have posted steady gains in reading and math at a time when most of the country is moving in the opposite direction.
A sweeping analysis of more than 5,000 school districts across 38 states found that only five states and Washington, D.C., showed meaningful reading growth between 2022 and 2025. Nationally, students trail pre-pandemic levels by nearly half a grade. More troubling still, the decline did not begin with COVID-19 — eighth-grade reading scores have been falling since 2013, fourth-grade since 2015. Harvard professor Thomas Kane described the pandemic as "the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion," linking the earlier decline to the abandonment of test-based accountability and the rise of social media displacing recreational reading.
The states reversing the trend — Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana — share a common thread: they mandated phonics-based instruction grounded in decades of cognitive science, paired with teacher coaching and early screening for learning disabilities like dyslexia. For years, many American schools had taught reading through methods that encouraged guessing from context rather than decoding words systematically. The return to phonics, advocates argue, is not a new idea but a reclaimed one.
Modesto invested $5,000 per teacher in an intensive literacy training program, yielding gains equivalent to 18 extra weeks of math learning and 13 in reading — significant, even as overall scores remain well below grade level. Detroit took a different path: after students sued the city in 2016 arguing they had been denied a constitutional right to read, a $94 million settlement funded new educators, attendance agents, and rebuilt instructional systems. At one elementary school, daily absences in a first-grade classroom fell from seven or eight to one or two — a change the teacher described as transformative for her ability to teach consistently.
The South has led this recovery most visibly. Louisiana is the only state where both math and reading scores now exceed pre-pandemic levels. Alabama built on its reading reforms to pass a Numeracy Act standardizing math instruction statewide. Researchers caution, however, that reform without full commitment has failed elsewhere — Florida, Arizona, and Nebraska adopted elements of the science-of-reading approach and still saw scores fall.
The historical record offers grounding. For three decades ending in the mid-2010s, American test scores rose steadily and racial gaps narrowed — not by accident, but through sustained policy and investment. Stanford professor Sean Reardon noted that this history proves national improvement is possible. Back in Modesto, a student described what reading fluency feels like when it finally clicks: "Eventually, you get through the word like it's water. You just say it smooth." That image — language flowing naturally — is what recovery looks like when it is allowed to take hold.
Nancy Barajas dims the classroom lights before her sixth graders take a test. A disco ball spins overhead. Music plays. The students dance together—a ritual she calls a pre-celebration, a moment to settle their nerves before the exam begins. In Modesto, California, this kind of intentional, energetic teaching has yielded real results. Reading and math scores in the district's elementary schools have climbed steadily over the past several years. But Modesto is an exception in a country experiencing what researchers now call a reading recession.
Scholars at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth analyzed test scores from more than 5,000 school districts across 38 states, tracking third through eighth graders from 2022 to 2025. The findings were stark: only five states and Washington, D.C., showed meaningful growth in reading test scores during that window. Nationally, students lag nearly half a grade level behind where they were before the pandemic. In math, the picture is slightly better, but the damage is real. What makes this crisis more troubling is that it did not begin with COVID-19. Reading scores for eighth graders have been falling since 2013. For fourth graders, the decline started in 2015. The pandemic was not the cause; it was an accelerant.
Thomas Kane, a Harvard professor who helped create the Education Scorecard analyzing this data, described the trajectory bluntly: "The pandemic was the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion in achievement." He traced the roots of the decline to a shift in policy roughly a decade ago, when policymakers abandoned test-based accountability systems that had served as early warning mechanisms. At the same time, social media colonized children's free time, displacing the kind of recreational reading that once built fluency and comprehension. But Kane also offered a counterpoint: a small group of state leaders and 108 local school districts have begun reversing course.
The states making progress—Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana—all made the same fundamental change: they mandated phonics-based instruction, what researchers call the "science of reading." For years, American schools had taught reading through methods that downplayed phonics, encouraging students instead to guess words from context or use picture clues. As scores plummeted, parents, scholars, and literacy advocates pushed back, demanding that schools align their methods with decades of cognitive science about how children actually learn to decode written language. The shift toward phonics-based approaches, combined with screening for learning disabilities like dyslexia and the hiring of instructional coaches to support teachers, has begun to move the needle.
In Modesto, the district invested heavily in teacher training, paying educators $5,000 each to complete an intensive program called LETRS—Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling. The gains were measurable: test score improvements that translate to an extra 18 weeks of learning in math and 13 weeks in reading. Yet even with these gains, Modesto's overall scores remain far below grade level, a reminder that recovery is neither quick nor complete. Detroit offers another model. The city's schools had deteriorated so severely that in 2016, students filed a lawsuit arguing they had been denied the constitutional right to read. A settlement of over $94 million followed. The district used that money to hire additional educators, deploy attendance agents who call and visit the homes of absent students, and rebuild systems from the ground up. At Munger Elementary-Middle School in a largely Latino neighborhood, 18 educators now work in small groups with struggling readers. First grade teacher Samantha Ciaffone noted that absences, once numbering seven or eight per day in her classroom, have dropped to one or two. "It allows us to be better educators to see kids consistently in the seat instead of once or twice a week," she said.
The South has emerged as the region leading this recovery. For a decade, Southern states have been quick to adopt research-based teaching methods and to fund teacher training and coaching. Louisiana and Alabama stand out: Louisiana is the only state where math scores exceeded pre-pandemic levels in 2025, and it is also the only state to beat its pre-pandemic reading average, with 87 percent of traditional public school students in districts where scores have risen since 2019. Alabama passed a state law requiring every school to use phonics-based instruction, then modeled its 2022 math reforms on that reading success, creating a Numeracy Act that standardized instruction, mandated regular testing, and required intervention for students lacking adequate math skills. At Oxmoor Valley Elementary in Birmingham, a school that made the state's failing list in 2016, hiring a full-time math specialist this year has contributed to steady improvement, though a majority of students still test below proficient.
Researchers emphasize that this recovery is not inevitable—some states, including Florida, Arizona, and Nebraska, adopted elements of science-of-reading reforms but still saw scores fall. Yet the historical record offers reason for cautious optimism. From the 1990s through the mid-2010s, the country experienced three decades of rising test scores and graduation rates, with declining racial disparities. That progress was not accidental; it was the result of sustained policy and investment. Sean Reardon, a Stanford professor, put it plainly: "We made enormous progress as a country in terms of educational success from over a 30-year period. Test scores went up dramatically. And so I think that says, as a country, we can improve education and educational opportunity." At Fairview Elementary in Modesto, where Barajas teaches, students now practice reading fluency every day. They read together in unison for one minute, then pair off—English learners matched with native speakers—for another round. Each child gets individual time with the teacher. One boy, describing the experience, said simply: "Eventually, you get through the word like it's water. You just say it smooth." That image—reading becoming as natural as flowing water—captures what recovery looks like when it takes hold.
Notable Quotes
The pandemic was the mudslide that had followed seven years of steady erosion in achievement.— Thomas Kane, Harvard professor
It allows us to be better educators to see kids consistently in the seat instead of once or twice a week.— Samantha Ciaffone, first grade teacher in Detroit
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did reading scores start falling so long before the pandemic? What changed?
Policymakers stopped using test scores as an early warning system. Schools shifted away from phonics-based methods. And smartphones arrived. Kids stopped reading for pleasure. It wasn't one thing—it was a whole ecosystem shifting away from reading.
So the pandemic didn't cause the crisis, it just made it worse?
Exactly. The pandemic was the mudslide. But the ground had already been eroding for seven years. The real question is why we didn't notice or act sooner.
What's different about the states that are actually improving?
They went back to phonics. Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana—they all mandated it. They also hired coaches to help teachers and screened kids for dyslexia. It's not complicated, but it requires commitment and money.
Does phonics work everywhere, or are there places where it hasn't helped?
Florida, Arizona, Nebraska all tried it and still saw scores fall. So it's necessary but not sufficient. You need the whole system—the instruction, the screening, the teacher training, the attendance support. Modesto and Detroit both understood that.
What struck you most about the story?
That a first grade teacher in Detroit went from having seven or eight kids absent every day to one or two. That's not a statistic. That's a child showing up. That's a teacher actually able to teach. That's what recovery looks like at ground level.
Do you think this can spread nationally?
It has to. We did it before—three decades of improvement starting in the 1990s. We know how. The question is whether we have the will to do it again.