High school reading skills are at an all-time low this year, based on testing data reported in September of 2025. Seniors in the US have the worst reading skills in over three decades. Based on data, one-third of high school seniors tested in schools didn’t have basic reading skills.
Many people believed that the reason the reading skills are so low is because of COVID-19 and online learning. People also believed that students were not as engaged in online school and didn’t learn as much. Although Norwood High School’s school librarian, Jennifer Bradley, had different opinions.
(Shareen Ahmed)
“It’s tough, thinking about it seems like there could be quite a few different factors that would have gone into this, not just the pandemic, because I feel everything is being blamed on the pandemic.” Ms. Bradley said. “That can be part of it, but I think it’s also like the technology and things that are such a fast pace right now that sometimes just taking the time to sit and read is not something high school teenagers necessarily want to do.”
Students in high school also have a heavy workload when coming home from school and might not necessarily have free time to read on their own time. Between sports, extracurricular activities, and homework, high schoolers have a limited amount of free time each day. Technology and AI could also be contributing factors to the all-time low of reading skills.
Teachers do notice this decline in reading skills and are starting to take action by going back to reading basics like phonics, reading comprehension, and more. When we asked Kathy Benson, a Norwood High School ninth and twelfth-grade English teacher, she had her own plan to stop the trend of declining reading skills.
(Shareen Ahmed)
“I think sometimes, people get better when they do practice.” Mrs. Benson said. “Practice makes not perfect, but better, and I think doing some reading class, but also expecting students to read independently, helps them.”
Students like Lauren Wong have also taken notice of this decline in reading skills, although to some, it does sound surprising.
“I was very surprised [about hearing about the decline] because I thought that high schoolers would be more mature and would be interested in more mature things and hobbies, but I guess not,” she said.
The leading causes of the reduced skills in reading for high schoolers are AI, technology, and after-school activities that take up students’ free time. Teachers are actively working on stopping this decline for future years.
