College Students are Struggling to Read

by Zahra Muhsin, MA

“The decline in adult literacy means not merely a decline in the capacity to read and write, but a decline in the impulse to puzzle out, brood upon, look up in the dictionary, mutter over, argue about, turn inside-out in verbal euphoria, the “incomparable medium” of language…”

• Adrienne Rich [1978]

In “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books”, Rose Horowitch documents a phenomenon that feels new: Professors reporting that college students cannot complete their assigned reading.

The professors in the article ascribe this problem to high schools no longer assigning full-length texts, instead relying on excerpts and shorter works. While this could be a component, there are deeper underlying issues. Students are often tested on comprehension, the goal: of remembering details and understanding the plot. For some students, their exploration of the text stops there.  However, perhaps what is harder to achieve is fostering a discussion that analyzes the text, makes connections, and evaluates the author’s decisions–cognitive skills higher up on Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Professionals in the article also theorize that reading and focus were stunted during COVID-19 or because of the advent of social media use with younger people. These are all worthy explanations, but the catalyst for this complex issue is a bit more obscure. It seems that explanations are not complete without evaluating American literacy as a whole.

In teaching programs across the United States, aspiring teachers learn and utilize Bloom’s Taxonomy to differentiate the modes of thinking students work through. Part educational theory and part cognitive psychological theory, Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a hierarchy of cognition that ranges from memorization at the bottom to more complex cognitive processes like evaluating and creating at the top.

Teachers are encouraged to view this taxonomy as a stairwell for student development in learning and thinking. The ultimate goal is for students to apply, evaluate, design, investigate, and critique what they read. All of these are essential skills to be well-informed and engaged global citizens.

Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a measure for educators to assess at what cognitive level their students can engage and provide the necessary support to move up the pyramid.

Often, students get stuck at the “remember” or the “understand” base of the hierarchy. When these students reach college campuses, they struggle. They remember details but struggle to identify themes, synthesize across texts, and make connections.

Furthermore, in many states (including Illinois), prospective teachers in their programs must pass the edTPA. The edTPA is a performance-based, subject-specific assessment and portfolio prospective teachers submit to be licensed. The assessment is used to emphasize, measure, and support the skills and knowledge that all teachers need. One key component in this assessment is students demonstrating advanced cognitive reading and discussion skills.

This is often the most difficult section of the edTPA because it requires extensive planning and gradual scaffolding-difficult tasks for a student teacher with limited time. Additionally, it relies on students completing the reading while trying to overcome literacy disparities already in the classroom. While there is no shortcut, there are some tips that can help facilitate this process.

Some recommendations LAS coaches use include:

• Pre-reading activities to prime students for the books’ overarching themes and questions
• Preview vocabulary students may encounter
• Read the assigned pages in chunks
• Keeping an annotation guide at hand to make note of important details
• Using literature summarizing sites to ensure the student understood the events that took place and check their interpretation
• Keeping a reflection/literature journal to document the process

So, the phenomenon is not as novel as it seems and begins much earlier than college. Childhood literacy skills have lasting effects into adulthood. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), showed that not even half (43%) of fourth graders in the U.S. scored at or above a proficient level in reading.

Additionally, according to the Literacy Project:

• 50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth-grade level
• 45 million Americans are functionally illiterate and cannot read above a fifth-grade level [approximately 13.5%]

These numbers are higher when socioeconomic status is also factored into it.

This initial surprise with college students struggling to read reveals a systematic literacy struggle in the United States. Deemed the Literacy Crisis, American educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders are tracking these rates and trying to implement change.

Reading is essential—Kafka writes how books “must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” There is a lot of work to do as teachers and professors collaborate and learn with students. Hundreds of thousands of teachers, parents, and other educational staff are diligently trying to close achievement gaps. Ultimately, this issue goes far above achievement and into nurturing young readers to understand themselves, and their place in the world, and bridge connections with others.

Contact LAS for information about reading support and more.