The US is forgetting how to read and we need to act now to reverse course!

A friend of mine recently shared a shocking statistic with me. Apparently, around half the American population (54%) reads at a 6th grade level or below.

I was immediately shocked and skeptical. How could “they” possibly know that? I immediately began running through the methodology I would want done to have faith in such a claim.

Being a good friend, my buddy shared a video that supports this shocking statistic. It’s well worth the 20 minutes it’ll take to watch, I promise.

Could it really be true? What does it mean if it is?

I’d say the first thing it would mean is that we should immediately abolish the federal Department of Education and enact school choice across the land (with the Educational Savings Account method, ideally).

Then, as soon as possible, we should abolish government schools entirely. Still, this seems like a bigger problem than just crappy government schools.

Why are “we” so bad at reading?

One obvious possible culprit is the smart phone, but let’s leave that aside for the moment. Literacy rates have been terrible in the US since at least the ‘70s and smart phones only became ubiquitous 10 or 15 years ago.

So what is it? Why are people content to not be able to read very well?

My biases lead me to suspect government is to blame, and perhaps at a very deep level. As my partner Tyrone has pointed out on Haman Nature from time to time, fiat money ruins everything.

He’s right. So does a massive and schizophrenic regulatory state. Between the counterfeiting and the regime uncertainty, our government has created a not-irrational elevation in the time preference of the population.

Why study hard? Why think and plan for the future when the government shifts the sands beneath your feet as it inflates away the value of the money earned by your efforts? Why exert yourself? Why try hard?

Or perhaps I’m being too cynical. Perhaps many people don’t need to read at a very high level. The phones I’m about to vilify also deliver audio and video content to people at the click of a link. Maybe the written word is just… less important now?

One part of the problem probably has to do with how we teach people to read these days. Back in the ‘70s, we learned via the phonics approach. Each letter or group of letters is associated with a sound. We were taught to “sound out the word”.

Then they switched to the “whole word” approach, on the theory that this method is closer to the way we evolved to learn spoken languages. This was a huge mistake. We didn’t evolve to be able to read. It’s a learned behavior. We can’t simply assume a method appropriate for an evolved skill (speaking) will work for a non-evolved skill (reading and writing).

The gap widens.

Looking at the charts, a disturbing trend appears. The gap in literacy between the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile is widening. High performers are staying about the same, but low performers are getting less literate.

Why? Phones? Maybe. Is this an effect of the Covid school lockdowns? Maybe. Whatever it is, it isn’t good. We don’t want an uneducated underclass. We don’t want the gap between “smart” and “dumb” to widen. This is the kind of thing that leads to civilization-wrecking social disunity.

Attention whores!

“Reading is an exercise in attention, and attention is increasingly fragmented.”

— Doug Lemov

Okay, let’s pile on the phones now. Clearly they are part of this problem. Our phones (and the Internet in general) are perfectly designed to steal away our attention. This is bad because deep reading requires near-total focus. Here’s a very good article on that.

As I’m sure you’re well aware, our phones destroy focus. Nothing is more distracting than a phone, with its flashing screen and near-constant dinging and buzzing. Even when it’s just sitting there within reach, it beckons to you:

“Pick me up! Just check social media for a second! Wanna hear a song? Wanna text your buddy? Wanna check the news real quick? C’mon… put that book down!”

When I read these days, I have to turn all notifications on my phone off and put it out of sight. It’s insidious.

And I’m old. I grew up and lived quite a while with no phones and no Internet. What hope do people have who grew up with these things?

Smart phones are new, and the Internet is too. We will figure out how to use these things in a non-harmful manner. But it’s going to take a while.

I really hope it doesn’t take too long. Deep reading leads to deep thinking. It’s important. We can’t just swap out one method of delivering information for another. If we do, we really will get dumber.

Naturally,

Adam

PS: If you think you’re getting dumber, check out Liberty Classroom! Created by Tom Woods, it has an impressive suite of courses, with new content being added all the time. Check it out!