This story was produced by the Associated Press, in partnership with Chalkbeat and AL.comand reprinted with permission.
MODESTO, Calif. – Before every big exam, teacher Nancy Barajas dims the lights, turns on a disco ball and blasts music from her playlist. Her sixth grade students dance together as a “pre-celebration” to build their confidence, then take their exam.
Lately, there has been a lot to celebrate at elementary schools in Modesto, California. Achievements in reading and mathematics have increased steadily in recent years.
But across the country, the results are grimmer. Researchers warn that the United States is experiencing a reading recession – a slide that predates the school disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Researchers from Harvard, Stanford and Dartmouth analyzed state test scores from third through eighth grades in more than 5,000 school districts in 38 states, allowing comparisons between school districts and states nationwide. Education Dashboard.
What they found was sobering: Only five states plus the District of Columbia saw significant growth in reading test scores between 2022 and 2025. Nationally, students remain nearly half a grade behind pre-pandemic reading scores and only slightly better in math.
As schools focus on catching children up since the Covid-19 pandemic upended education, reading test scores have fallen since 2013 for eighth graders and 2015 for fourth graders, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
“The pandemic was the landslide that followed seven years of steady erosion of achievement,” said Thomas Kane, a Harvard professor who helped create the Education Scorecard.
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Still, some states and school districts are making progress, largely by moving toward phonics-based instruction and providing additional support for struggling readers.
The picture is also brighter in mathematics.
Nearly every state studied saw math test scores improve between 2022 and 2025. Student absenteeism also declined in most states. In more than 400 U.S. school districts, including Modesto, growth in reading and math has outpaced that of demographically similar districts in the same state.
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Researchers still debate the causes of the reading recession.
According to the researchers, one possible factor is the rise of social media on smartphones and corresponding social networks. decline in recreational reading among children. States have also backed away from imposing strict sanctions on schools whose students fail to make progress on standardized tests, Kane said.
But the states that improved reading scores — including Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana — all had one thing in common: They ordered schools to teach with a phonics-based approach known asscience of reading.”
For years, schools taught reading using approaches that downplayed phonics and encouraged strategies like guessing words based on contextual clues. As reading scores have plummeted over the past decade, parents, academics and literacy advocates have pushed for teaching methods that align with decades of research on how children learn to read — largely by sounding out words.
Along with reforming teaching methods, states also required schools to screen for learning disabilities such as dyslexia and hire coaches to help teachers improve their reading instruction.
That said, the “science of reading” reforms have not guaranteed success. Some states, including Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, changed parts of their reading instruction but still saw test scores fall.
In Modesto, reading instruction was reorganized during the pandemic, and math instruction a few years earlier. The district created a new department to help students who are still learning English. Schools have also stepped up teacher training, paying educators $5,000 to complete a broad “science of reading” curriculum called LETRS, or Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling.
Modesto’s test scores increased enough to account for 18 additional weeks of learning in math and 13 weeks in reading. However, the district still has a way to go: overall results remain well below grade level.
Related: With reading scores falling, Massachusetts is changing course. Some teachers are not happy
An emphasis on reading has also improved outcomes in Detroit, as have efforts to get children into school more consistently. For years, this large urban district struggled with deplorable school conditions, leading to a 2016 lawsuit in which students claimed they were denied the “right to read.”
The lawsuit resulted in a settlement of more than $94 million, money that helped move things forward. Although the district is still well below the national average, student test scores have increased faster than similar urban districts in Michigan.
“It took a long time to rebuild the systems, and now kids are learning at higher levels, but I’m still not satisfied. And I think that’s the next challenge: continuing to motivate, inspire and change things,” Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said.
The money helped Munger Elementary and Middle School, located in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Detroit, employ 18 educators who provide additional support to children in small groups. An attendance officer also makes calls to the homes of absent students, even showing up at their door.
Just a few years ago, first-grade teacher Samantha Ciaffone said, it was normal for about seven or eight kids to be absent from her classroom each day. Now there are usually only one or two.
“It allows us to be better educators by seeing kids consistently sitting instead of once or twice a week,” Ciaffone said. “It makes such a difference.”
Related: Southern states encourage early reading, but progress stalls in middle school
Over the past decade, the South has established itself as a region pave the way for education reforms – bucking an established trend of finding yourself at the bottom of education rankings. Southern states quickly adopted research-based teaching methods and funded teacher training and supervision.
It pays off. Louisiana and Alabama were the only states with higher math scores in 2025 than before the pandemic. Louisiana is also the only state to beat its pre-pandemic reading average, with 87% of traditional public school students attending a district with higher scores than in 2019.
“I have used my pulpit to preach a return to basics in education,” said Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s superintendent of education. “We’re not trying to chase away all the shiny new things that might distract students and teachers.”
Alabama saw remarkable progress in reading after the pandemic, thanks to a state law requiring every school to use phonics-based teaching. The Legislature modeled math reforms in 2022 on Alabama’s reading achievements. The state’s Numeracy Act standardized math instruction, required regular testing, and mandatory intervention for children who lacked adequate math skills.
Oxmoor Valley Elementary School in Birmingham hired a full-time math specialist this year to help struggling children. The school, which was on the state’s “failing” list in 2016, has steadily improved its math and reading scores, even though the majority of students still are not proficient in those two subjects.
“We can provide all of these supports, but at the same time hold kids to high expectations,” Birmingham Superintendent Mark Sullivan said.
The researchers point out that such progress is possible in the United States because it has already been done. Beginning in the 1990s, the country experienced decades of growth in test scores and graduation rates, while racial disparities declined. This progress continued until the mid-2010s.
“We have made enormous progress as a country in educational achievement over a period of more than 30 years. Test scores have increased dramatically,” said Stanford professor Sean Reardon. “And so I think that means that as a country we can improve education and educational opportunities.”
At Fairview Elementary School in Modesto, where Barajas teaches, students now practice their reading speed and fluency daily. After a dance break, the class reads a one-page text together in unison for one minute, then the students divide into pairs to reread. Students learning English are paired with native English speakers, and each child takes turns reading with Barajas.
“Eventually you understand the word like it’s water,” one boy said. “You just say that quietly.”
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The article Children are in a ‘reading recession’ as test scores continue to fall appears first in the Hechinger Report.
