Do any of you remember that book Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar? It’s a collection of stories about students, teachers, and other staff attending a school that stands 30 stories tall with one classroom on each level. It was meant to be built with 30 classrooms on a single level, but the builder made a mistake during construction. No biggie—the school community adapted. My third grade teacher used to reward our class with read alouds of Sachar’s book on Fridays and my classmates and I would sit—enraptured—as she passionately dictated stories about a kid who wore an infinite number of jackets, a teacher who turned misbehaving kids into apples, a student who couldn’t stay awake, a bouncy ball in a utility closet that no one wanted, a floor that didn’t exist, and other bizarre manifestations. As far as I can remember, every single kid in my class loved those stories. We’d all race in from recess to do our silent reading and practically trample one another to get our hands on that book, mean mugging the person who got to it first. 

One of the first questions I ask my students when I meet them in August is if they like to read, and if the answer is no, when they stopped enjoying reading. This is, of course, assuming that they once enjoyed books. Most students who answer “no” to the first question have an answer to the second question that resonates with me as a certified bibliophile who has a very personal relationship with the experience of falling out of love with books. Many of their answers remind me of the tragedy that was my sixth grade year. My English teacher—a prototypical evil hag if ever there was one—would not let me read my Fear Street books during silent reading. She never explained why. We had a specific set of dry classics from which we were allowed to choose and don’t you dare ask questions. I continued to read sporadically through middle school, finding a small spark again during ninth grade once I discovered Christopher Pike and devoured practically everything he had written, but I can confidently say that I did not read a single book for pleasure between 10th and 12th grade. Reading was a chore. I noted the signs; I internalized a lesson my teachers likely never meant to teach. Read this. Answer that. Rinse. Repeat. This is not meant to be fun.

I read a statistic a few months ago that the average American adult reads at or below a sixth grade level. Sixth grade seemed a bit low to me at first, but if you’ve ever been reckless enough (like me) to open the comments on a social media community page post, simple observational analysis can corroborate this startling statistic. Like any well-educated adult, I decided to look into adult literacy further rather than simply relying on my own myopic personal observations to draw such big conclusions.

A YouGov poll published late last year revealed that about 40% of US adults read precisely zero books in 2025. This is down from the Pew Research poll that revealed about a quarter of US adults read zero books in 2021. Many different surveys, data sets, studies, and anecdotes confirm that the massive decline in reading for pleasure is not just happening among adults—kids are not reading either. This trend of not reading for pleasure doesn’t surprise me, especially considering how often I see someone using a series of commas to indicate an ellipses, capitalizing the first letter of every word in a sentence, not capitalizing anything at all—the list goes on. But poor punctuation is not the big concern here. Let’s be real. Usually people know what you mean if you can give them an approximation of what you are trying to communicate. There are much graver implications to consider when someone doesn’t know how to communicate effectively. Reading for pleasure regularly is directly correlated with increased literacy skills (hello, RLAA certification). And literacy rates are truly at stake here. Beyond literacy rates, but not less importantly, reading helps us cultivate empathy, helps us learn about other cultures, helps us make sense of the human experience, helps us feel heard and seen. Regardless of why you might or might not find reading important, the undeniable fact is that US is experiencing a literacy crisis. Proliteracy.org compiled a fact sheet in 2025 that linked low literacy rates to a significantly increased risks of living in poverty. 59 million American adults cannot read much beyond short and simple sentences, 72 million have numerical literacy skills so low they can do little outside of comparing the number of items in a box to the number of items in a different box, and 68 million have critical thinking skills so low they cannot solve problems that involve more than one step or include any variables. How can anyone live this way? 

How can we—in our tiny little SCV bubble—do our part to help reverse this nationwide trend?

It starts with establishing a culture of literacy in our classrooms, on our campus in a much broader sense, and most importantly, it starts with teaching students—modeling to students—how to love books, how books connect with our subject matter and the world with which we all engage on a daily basis. It’s time to start viewing ourselves as shepherds of literacy. 

I propose we start small and we plant a seed on our campus that helps students connect their reading experiences with joyful memories. Students will be more likely to puzzle through difficult or frustrating reading tasks when reading is already habitual. Students need to see us reading and they need to know that we also connect reading to joy and to leisure. 

In my classroom, I model a love of reading. I begin on day one by including a picture on my intro slideshow explaining what I read that summer. I summarize my highs and my lows, and I include gritty details about what I learned about myself in each of the books I read. Throughout the year, I constantly tell them what I’m currently reading and I connect what I’m reading to what we are currently learning in class or even just mundane details of weird little connections I’ve made, sometimes even interrupting their carpe librum reading to exclaim “MY GOD, LISTEN TO WHAT I JUST READ!” I’m sure many of my students find my interruptions rude, but some find them entertaining, and when I inevitably leave the book I was reading during my outburst on my shelf with a white board note that reads, “Read this if you ____,” that book inevitably goes missing. And it sometimes comes back, but do you know what? Who cares if it never comes back? Some of my favorite books have gone missing from my classroom and I’ve never seen them again, but it just means that one of my teenagers was interested enough to take it.

When I teach effective counterarguments, I read excerpts from the nonfiction books I’ve read and I’m like, “SEE!?!! This author does it this way too!” When I find quotes I like, I put them on my white board underneath a title that reads “Quote of the Week,” which many of my students like to point out is more like a quote of the month, but whatever.

For the past two years, I’ve put a Google form in my classroom stream for students to fill out each time they finish a book, and I buy pizza for the top reader in each class and we eat at lunch together at the end of the year and talk books over pizza (personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut, anyone—‘90s kids?)

I ask students what they’re reading. I approach individual students and I say, “This book reminded me of you. I think you’d like it.” (By the way, this is my love language, and if I’ve ever approached you personally with a book recommendation, just know that this is the highest compliment I could ever pay a person)

I’m honest when I don’t like a book. I make my students set goals and create Goodreads accounts. I share Instagram and TikTok bookfluencer (yes—this is a thing) accounts with my students. I let my students know that it’s okay to abandon a book and that life is too short to read a bad book, but also that there’s something for everyone out there.

Most importantly, free reading (carpe librum) in my classroom is never restrictive and it’s never punitive. You want to read manga (*cringe*)? Please do so. I’m not testing you on the material and I’m never policing your choices. It’s also never assessed. It’s my duty as an educator to find you a book you’ll love. I think back to Mrs. Vossler in sixth grade who sucked every single ounce of fun out of reading for me, and I never want to be that. Let’s all agree that we never want to be the person someone in their 40s remembers and says, “Yep, that’s the person who extinguished my flame.”

“In this classroom, we love books.” It’s that simple. And it doesn’t have to take much of our class time. We schmooze with students all the time during down time. Why can’t we make this practice centered around the things we’ve learned from the books we’ve read?

I propose we do a few things as a school community. Why don’t we do a regular “What I’m Reading” segment on Hart TV? Why don’t we use campus bulletin space for teachers to post “books I’ve loved” reflections. My favorite assignment from grad school was compiling a reading autobiography timeline that delineated my most influential books and explained how these books influenced me. Let’s do that. Do we even remember which books we loved as kids? Which books made us readers? Why don’t we reflect? Let’s share these experiences widely across campus. Let’s not let any campus space students encounter be untouched by the books that have touched us. 

Let’s all commit ourselves to reading more and talking about our experiences with our students. In history, when we read about a protagonist whose conflict centers around some historical event we’ve taught, let’s share that. In math, if there’s a mathematical principle that plays heavily into a conflict that affects a protagonist, let’s share that. I read Emily St. John Mandel’s book Station Eleven about a traveling performance group that keeps stories alive for a society on the brink of extinction. I can’t think of a better metaphor for what AI is doing to us collectively. Let’s share that.

Let’s do something that keeps passion alive. Most students I’ve met have at least one positive reading experience they can remember. 

Let’s help them hold onto that.

My third grade teacher didn’t spark my love of reading, but she certainly fanned the flames for me. My own parents taught me to love books simply by making them constantly available to me as a child, by introducing me to the magical world of The Runaway Bunny (I still try to read this book to my own kids, but they are much too old—insert big sad sigh). My third grade teacher reinforced this love when she allowed me and a horde of fellow barnacle students to sit with her at lunch as she read Garfield comics to us out loud. I learned through my parents and through my third grade teacher that reading is an activity that is fun and that does not have to have strings attached. Many of our students’ parents do not have the time nor the resources for this kind of cultivation, so we must do our part.

No strings attached.

Modeled by the people our students look up to.

Fun.

The literacy crisis that is sweeping the nation and the world at large does not have to engulf us. We can fan a different flame.