Basic reading ability among adults is getting worse, not better. The gap between high-skilled and low-skilled readers is widening and it hits daily life, jobs, and self-sufficiency hard. About 48 million adults read at or below third-grade equivalent according to some analyses.
Over half of adults read below a sixth-grade level.
Average literacy scores dropped between 2017 and 2023 across nearly every group.
Low literacy links to higher poverty, unemployment, and social costs estimated in the trillions.
A Fifth of American Adults Can’t Read. Here’s How To Teach Them.
Marian* was in her late 30s when we first met, and she asked me to help her learn to read. This was in 2007. I was the new-ish supervisor of a tutoring program in Manhattan aimed at adults who were trying to get their GED. Most students came in for help with essay-writing or algebra. But Marian, who had seen her three daughters through high school and into college, wanted to get better at reading.
She told me she was at third-grade level. Once we started working together, I discovered it was more like first grade.
This isn’t as unusual as you might think. Forty-eight million adults in the U.S. read at or below the third-grade level, and many of them struggle in ways that are almost impossible for a fluent reader to imagine: They can’t order off a menu, check in for a telehealth appointment, or fill out a job application. Low literacy skills correlate heavily with poverty and crime, and are associated with an estimated $2.2 trillion per year of social services, healthcare, and lost wages. This is an issue both sides of the political spectrum would love to address. The question is: How?