Posted on August 21, 2025

Mara Mitchell long suspected her oldest son C.J. just skimmed over books without really comprehending what he was reading. But she didn’t grasp how poor his skills were until he sat down a couple years ago to read a simple book to his little brother.

After he um’d and uh’d his way through a picture book about starting kindergarten, “My youngest said, ‘Mama, C.J. can’t read,’ ” Mitchell said. “Somewhere a ball had been dropped, and as much as I’ve been trying to be an advocate for him, something was missed.”

Now in ninth grade at Whites Creek High School in Nashville, C.J. is among many teens who lack the skills to sound out and understand challenging vocabulary. In class, he often struggles to pronounce longer words.

“When I get to them, I’ll stop, and I’ll wait on the teacher to say it,” he said. In middle school, he was determined to figure out words on his own because teachers told him it would only get harder in high school.

New research shows older students like C.J. hit a “decoding threshold.” Over 20% of students in fifth through seventh grade stumble over words they don’t recognize or can’t sound out, often preventing them from grasping the main idea of reading materials for school, according to the study released Wednesday from the Educational Testing Service and the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund.

Falling literacy rates following the pandemic have drawn more attention to adolescents’ reading proficiency. National tests from 2022 showed alarming declines in eighth graders’ reading skills.

But experts have long recognized that many older students lack a strong foundation in reading. “A lot of kids could very well have their basic K-2 foundational skills down pat, but they still need decoding support,” said Rebecca Sutherland, a co-author of the report and the associate director of research for Reading Reimagined, a project of the research and development fund. “There’s an assumption … that kids can self-teach.”

Original article.