To Reverse The Decline In Reading Scores, We Need To Build Knowledge

Scores on standardized tests given across the country have declined, and the gap between high- and low-achievers has widened. There's plenty of hand-wringing, but commentators continue to overlook an obvious explanation: we're not giving vulnerable students access to the kind of knowledge that could help them succeed.

It's become a predictable biennial ritual. Reading and math scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress-also known as "The Nation's Report Card"-are released amid great fanfare. A few states and districts are singled out for commendation, but the overall picture is bleak: stagnant or declining scores, especially among the lowest-achieving students.

This year's scores, released on October 30, are scary enough to qualify for Halloween. The tests revealed mixed results in math and an even grimmer picture than usual in reading. Among 4th graders, reading scores have declined in 17 states since the last test administration in 2017. And in 8th grade, scores declined in a whopping 31 states. All demographic groups of 8th graders lost ground except Asians, but those at the bottom lost more: the top scorers declined by one point, and the lowest declined by six points.

It can be dangerous to draw conclusions on the basis of NAEP data. But the consistently bad news about reading scores-which have been stagnant since 1998-is a pretty clear indication we're doing something wrong. Indeed, the last time NAEP scores were released, in April 2018, the board that administers the tests convened a panel of experts to discuss the lack of progress in reading. The consensus was that we've been teaching reading comprehension in a way that doesn't correspond to scientific evidence.

The experts explained that the vast majority of American schools approach reading comprehension as though it were a set of generally applicable skills, like "finding the main idea" and "making inferences"-the skills the tests appear to measure. Especially in schools where test scores are low, students practice these "skills" for hours every week on books on a random variety of topics that are easy enough for them to read independently. The theory is that it's more important for children to acquire comprehension skills than substantive knowledge, because they can use the skills to acquire knowledge from reading complex texts later on-and to understand the passages on standardized tests at the end of the year.

In fact, cognitive scientists have found that the most important factor in comprehension is how much background knowledge readers have relating to the topic: the more you have, the easier it is to understand a text and retain the information. So if schools want to boost reading comprehension, especially for students who are unlikely to pick up academic knowledge and vocabulary at home, the key is to expand knowledge through a curriculum that includes lots of history, science, and the arts-the very subjects that are being marginalized to make room for more practice in comprehension "skills." The reason many students score poorly on tests is not that they haven't learned the skills; it's that they can't understand the reading passages in the first place.

It appears NAEP administrators have short memories. At this year's event, there was no mention of the analysis offered by the experts on last year's panel. When an audience member asked about the discrepancy between math and reading scores, the NAEP official taking questions merely shrugged. "We don't seem to know how to move the scores for reading but we do for math," was all she offered-along with an aside about how the "Reading Wars" seem to be back.

That's a reference to a debate that erupted in the 1990s about the best way to teach children how to sound out words. Thanks to reporting by radio journalist Emily Hanford, it's recently become clear that many children still aren't being taught phonics in the systematic way that is backed by abundant scientific evidence. In alluding to the return of the Reading Wars, the NAEP official was apparently referring to Hanford's work and the debate it has sparked.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who spoke at the "NAEP Day" event, also brought up phonics. In addition to touting school choice as the remedy for low reading scores, DeVos declared that "America's educators know what it takes to teach a student to read"-meaning they understand the need for systematic phonics instruction and for some reason just aren't doing it. In fact, many educators don't know what it takes to teach kids to sound out words, due to deficiencies in their training. Nor have they been informed about the need to build knowledge to boost comprehension-which is perhaps an even more widespread problem, and certainly one that has been more overlooked.

This year's NAEP Day panel, composed of educators and state education officials, also failed to mention the elephant in the room identified by the panel last year. Although the topic was educational equity, no one brought up the difference in access to knowledge between kids from wealthier, more educated families and their less privileged peers-or the fact that schools are failing to build knowledge for the children who need it most. Instead, the panelists urged the usual recommendations: the need to have high expectations for all students, the importance of basing interventions on data.

Those exhortations sound good. But if teachers don't provide students with the information they need to meet high expectations, and if the data they rely on leads only to a doubling down on the comprehension "skills" it purports to measure-as is usually the case-reading scores will stay low and the gap between students at the top and bottom will persist. School choice won't help either, unless there are more choices that include knowledge-building curricula and an easier way to identify them. And while the pundits and officials continue to overlook a root cause of the problem, untold numbers of students will continue to suffer.