Opinion

Our kids aren’t good readers. Here’s the reason.

Susan Engel is a senior lecturer of developmental psychology and founding director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. Catherine Snow is a linguist and professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The tribulations of teaching after a pandemic have reawakened concern that U.S. children are not learning to read. Schools are scrambling to rebound from the recent plunge in test scores — but they’re scrambling in the wrong direction. Educators have fixated on phonics to treat covid-19 learning loss. In doing so, they are shortchanging something of equal importance: the role knowledge plays in helping children become good readers.