Shocking Reading Decline Persists Post-Pandemic

Five years after schools reopened, first and second graders still read worse than before the pandemic shut everything down.

Quick Take

NWEA’s 2024-2025 report shows first and second graders remain below pre-pandemic reading levels, with scores flat since 2020
The 2022 NAEP assessment recorded the largest reading decline for nine-year-olds since 1990, a five-point drop
Lower-performing students and those in high-poverty schools experienced steeper losses and slower recovery
Remote learners below the 25th percentile had significantly less access to devices, quiet study spaces, and teacher support
Math shows modest improvement, but reading remains stubbornly stalled despite intervention efforts

The Reading Crisis Nobody Solved

When schools closed in March 2020, nobody knew it would take five years to discover the damage. A national sample tracking over 950,000 students showed immediate and substantial reading declines in grades one through six by fall 2020. The youngest learners absorbed the hardest hit. Yet four years later, NWEA data confirms those gaps persist. First and second graders in 2024-2025 still underperform compared to their pre-pandemic peers. The problem: reading scores have barely budged since the peak disruption.

Numbers That Refuse to Recover

The 2022 NAEP long-term trend assessment delivered the wake-up call. Nine-year-olds experienced a five-point reading score decline compared to 2020—the largest drop recorded since 1990. No demographic group saw score increases. Lower-performing students declined most sharply. Meanwhile, i-Ready data through 2021-2022 confirmed persistent K-8 reading and math declines, with steeper losses in high-poverty schools where resources were already stretched thin.

Who Got Left Behind

Remote learning created a two-tiered system. During 2020-2021, seventy percent of nine-year-olds learned from home. Students below the 25th percentile lacked access to devices, quiet spaces, and direct teacher support—luxuries their higher-performing classmates possessed. This disparity widened existing gaps. Students of color and those in high-poverty urban areas experienced the steepest declines. Suburban-city reading gaps narrowed slightly, but only because both fell together.

Math Improves While Reading Stalls

The contrast reveals something troubling about recovery priorities. Math scores show slow but measurable improvement. Reading remains flat. This divergence suggests schools focused intervention efforts on numeracy while treating reading as a secondary concern. Yet foundational reading skills compound every other academic outcome. A child struggling to decode words in second grade faces compounded deficits by middle school, then high school, then workforce entry.

The Equity Trap

Lower-performing students entered the pandemic already behind. Five years later, they remain further behind. The gap widened, not narrowed. High-poverty schools, where students relied most heavily on school-provided meals, technology, and instruction, absorbed disproportionate losses. These children missed critical foundational years when reading skills lock in. Catching up requires intensive, sustained intervention—resources most struggling schools lack.

Years After The Pandemic, Younger Students Still Have Far To Go In Reading, Report Says https://t.co/0xTok1qvWH

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 12, 2026

What Recovery Actually Requires

Summer reading programs like Kids Read Now demonstrate that focused intervention works. Evidence shows ninety-seven percent skill maintenance through summer breaks when students engage in targeted reading. Yet scaling such programs nationally requires funding, coordination, and political will. Schools face pressure to address reading deficits, but assessments like NAEP and i-Ready guide funding decisions. Without dedicated resources, recovery remains aspirational.

The Precedent Nobody Wanted

NAEP long-term trends dating to 1969 show no comparable reading decline. The pandemic accelerated a pre-existing downward trend in high school reading and math, but the elementary disruption stands historically unique. Twelve-year-olds in 2024 show worsened declines from 2019, indicating the pandemic didn’t create the problem—it weaponized it. Early intervention in grades one and two becomes critical because the trajectory compounds.