Students around the country are struggling to read at grade level post-pandemic.

National Family Literacy Month began on Nov. 1 with hopes to encourage reading and literacy in all ages, especially the youth. 40% of children in the U.S. are nonreaders, according to Scientific American while there is an astonishing 64% of eighth graders reading below grade level, according to The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance. 

The addition of the global pandemic and years of online learning has taken a toll on literacy rates across the country. Students have been shown to score significantly lower than grade level on state mandated tests than in  years prior to the pandemic. 

NIU is working to close the literacy gap with the help of the Jerry L. Johns Literacy Clinic. The clinic was established over 60 years ago and currently provides reading support services for K-12 students. 

The clinic matches the children with NIU students who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in elementary education and working to receive their reading endorsement certificate.

“The students help work on various aspects of reading, things like phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, how to decode phonics, that kind of thing, and then reading fluency and comprehension,” said David Paige, director of the Jerry L. Johns Literacy Clinic.

The clinic is currently only taking younger children, as the effects of the pandemic have disrupted the classroom, and created an influx of younger students needing support services. 

“They’re trying to flow on up where they really don’t have the reading skills that they need, and it’s just gonna be a real struggle,” Paige said. “So it’s a big problem, and of course we saw a permanent drop in national reading scores as a result of the pandemic, a significant event that basically wiped out 30 years of gains that a lot of people knew about.”

Illinois’ boards of education is among many others that are working tirelessly to fix the loose ends of the pandemic.

The state encourages families to take the day to find a book and hosts a reading night at home.

The benefits children receive when they are reading with a parent include building language skills, developing empathy and emotional awareness and learning more about the world around them according to the Child Mind Institute.

Paige encourages families to continue to read because their child will need more practice than what can be given in a class time. Children who tend to read more are more likely to be ahead of their classmates in literacy proficiency.

“Having a really good running start on that and then when they get to kindergarten, that’s really one of the first tasks at hand, and then, and then you get into some more technical skills around phonemic awareness, which may be a little bit more difficult for parents to work with because you have to have some technical skill on what that is and how to do it,” Paige said.

Finding book clubs and book subscription services helps with recommendations on what to read next.

Beginning in 2017, Reese Witherspoon’s production company “Hello Sunshine” launched “Reese’s Book Club” to recommend books with women at the center of the story.  

Reese’s Book Club features both young adult and adult novels. Witherspoon’s major success from the book club comes from turning the stories of the books into films or TV shows. Finding film adaptations of books allows for the pages to jump to life on screen and fuel imaginations. 

It will take a team effort of students, parents, teachers and even literacy specialists to correct the fall of literacy rates across the country. 

However, it has been done before and can certainly be done again with time.

Teachers around the country have agreed it has been harder to teach lessons due to the growing behavioral issues in the classroom.

“The behaviors we’re seeing now are vastly different than before COVID. It’s no longer just about getting kids to learn the class work but also getting them to care about their education,” said Nika Leone, an NIU alum and 7th grade English teacher at Harvard middle school. “We’re trying to find interesting ways to engage our students, like making the course work more relevant.”

Leone tries to get her students involved by bringing in books to her classroom that she knows will interest her students. She uses these books to get students in the habit of daily reading, noting to her students that it is easier with a book you enjoy.

Literacy is one of the most foundational skills of education. It is important to ensure there is a healthy relationship and environment where reading and writing is nurtured and available to all students. 

The Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian and Illinois State Library’s Illinois Center for the Books will be hosting “Family Reading Night” on Thursday.