Reading Crisis Revisited: Data Shows Decline Concentrated Among Less Skilled Readers
A recent essay in The Bulwark challenges the alarmist narrative of a 'reading crisis' in America, arguing that while reading rates have declined, the picture is more nuanced than often portrayed. The author, a former Soviet émigré, draws on personal experience and historical context to question the link between literacy and liberal democracy. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills show that while the share of Americans with low literacy skills has increased, the proportion of highly skilled readers has remained stable. The essay also notes that the decline in reading may be partly due to shifts to other media among casual readers, as mean reading time among those who do read has increased. The author critiques both left-wing and right-wing cultural trends that discourage reading, and suggests that the panic over reading may be overblown, pointing to positive signs like the resurgence of book clubs among Gen Z and the recent surge in print sales of Homer's Odyssey following Christopher Nolan's film. The piece concludes that the fate of books should not be tied to the fate of liberal democracy, and that a saner political environment would allow more focus on literature and art.
Key facts
- The Atlantic essay 'The End of Reading' by Rose Horowitch sparked controversy.
- Christopher Nolan's film 'The Odyssey' led to a surge in print sales of Homer's work.
- Austin Sarat, a political science professor at Amherst College, wrote in The Conversation that reading long, complex books is vanishing from the American scene.
- Marshall McLuhan's observation that 'the liberal world by definition is literate' is quoted.
- The percentage of 13-year-olds who read for fun daily or almost daily fell from 35% in 1984 to 14% in 2025.
- The share of adults reporting any reading for personal interest dropped from 26% in 2003 to 16% in 2023.
- OECD data shows the share of American adults with literacy scores at Level 1 or below rose from less than 20% in 2017 to nearly 30%.
- The share of adults reading at Level 3 dropped from 35% to 31% between 2017 and 2023, while Level 4 and 5 readers remained constant at 13%.
- NAEP data for high school seniors shows 'below basic' reading skills rose from 20% in the 1990s to 32% in 2024, while 'advanced' skills remained steady.
- The author cites historical reading panics, including Rudolf Flesch's 'Why Johnny Can't Read' (1955) and Allan Bloom's 'The Closing of the American Mind' (1987).
- The author's family emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1980, and she notes that Soviet book culture was performative and did not produce liberalism.
- The essay mentions that the Nazi regime emerged from a highly literate society, and that print media can also stir up anger and paranoia.
- George Orwell's 1946 essay 'The Prevention of Literature' is referenced to critique left-wing orthodoxies.
- The author suggests that both left and right are hostile to reading, with the left 'problematizing' classics and the right scorning the humanities.
- Tyler Jagt's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (June) acknowledges that 'every generation of professors has complained that their students cannot read.'
- The author notes positive signs such as the resurgence of book clubs among Generation Z and TikTok videos mocking 'performative reading.'
- Jeff Bezos is criticized for killing the Washington Post Book Review.
- The essay concludes that the fate of books should not be linked to the fate of liberal democracy.
Entities
Artists
- Rose Horowitch
- Austin Sarat
- Marshall McLuhan
- Neil Postman
- Rudolf Flesch
- Jonathan Kozol
- Allan Bloom
- E.D. Hirsch
- Alvin Kernan
- Daniel Singal
- Mikhail Bulgakov
- Alexandre Dumas
- Guy de Maupassant
- Ernest Hemingway
- Anton Chekhov
- Lope de Vega
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
- Vladimir Voinovich
- George Orwell
- Tyler Jagt
- Nicholas Carr
- Suzanne Collins
- Christopher Nolan
- Homer
- Mike Wallace
- Jeff Bezos
Institutions
- The Bulwark
- The Atlantic
- Amherst College
- The Conversation
- National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
- Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- Rutgers University
- Detroit News
- Chronicle of Higher Education
- Washington Post Book Review
- CBS
- Gallup
Locations
- United States
- Soviet Union
- Russia
- Texas
- Washington Post