Why aren't my kids reading like they used to?

What to expect:

6 min read

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This week, we tackle the realization that globally, literacy scores are trending downwards at a very steep trend. Here’s what you’re about to become an expert in:

• Tech Talk: Developing and marking writing tasks at breakneck speeds

• Surplus Scoop: Where teachers are spending too much of their own money

• Brainy Bits: Global standardized tests exists - just wait until you see the results

Tech Talk

Red ink everywhere

The Problem:

Global reading and writing scores are dropping significantly. Although typing may be common, autocorrect, less traditional forms of reading, and not much need to write outside of the classroom means the typical approaches aren’t working like they used to.

It’s also the most time consuming thing for us teachers to mark and provide constructive feedback on. But there are some examples of edtech that can help shave down the time needed without sacrificing results.

The Solution:

Noredink is popular amongst teachers already, with over 60% of US districts signed up for it. It acts as a suite of products to help your learners with writing across multiple subject areas, and it’s this angle that can save you the most time.

The two parts of the suite that will help tackle this are their Quick Writes and Self Review features. 

Quick writes provides short, instant writing prompts that can be tailored to your subject needs. Students answer these prompts within the app and receive instant, automated feedback. This helps provide practice in last-minute moments while formative, instant feedback can help develop writing skills.

The second piece of this pie is Self-Review. With Noredink, there are lots of self and peer review tools that go well beyond simply throwing an essay into a grammar checking tool. Visual, interactive feedback helps guides learners to understanding their mistakes as opposed to simply just fixing them.

In both of these cases, data can always be shared back to the teacher - even to the point of running full quizzes, subject-specific guiding questions, and the ability to mix your feedback with their automated kind.

How about YOUR classroom:

The main argument against a tool like this is “who cares - technology will eliminate the need to write correctly anyways”. And although there may be an argument there, much like trigonometry isn’t a daily skill, but rather instills critical thinking processes, writing will always be there.

When students write in an environment (like Noredink) where autocorrect is not the only option, more thought goes into every word and sentence. If writing prompts are all you need, using ChatGPT to help you lesson plan will be enough. But if your students struggle with feedback, Noredink is the better option. The free version should allow for many features, as premium requires a custom quote process.

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to learn more:

• This state has teachers spending nearly $1400 out of pocket on their classrooms

• Can you guess where England’s first net-zero carbon school is?

• Energy drinks are officially banned at this Canadian school - but why?

Brainy Bits

PISA - no, not the tower

The Study:

Every 3 years, the OECD runs it’s PISA (Program for International School Assessment) exam which tests over 700,000 15 year-old students across 81 countries on math, reading, and science. The most recent data set (2022) is officially out.

The PISA exam is a two hour test comprised of multiple choice and short answer questions. Demographics, school funding, and many outside factors are taken into account for each school’s score. The results are then compared within the country as well as between international averages.

Even though local district comparisons are not available, the data can still help us identify large scale trends - especially when it comes to literacy.

To help crack this open, let’s look at literacy PISA scores across three countries: Canada, The USA, and The UK.

The Results:

For those curious, Singapore scored top results in every category. Canada placed 8th, USA 9th, and The UK 13th when it comes to reading/literacy. The point is not to compare countries against each other, but rather, against themselves.

Are literacy scores actually going down? Globally, according to PISA, the answer is a resounding yes. But let’s look at the individual results: 

Canada: Trending downwards since 2000, but a healthy jump happened in 2018 only for 2022 to yield the worst results on record for the country. Conclusion? Literacy success is nose diving since 2018.

USA: Slight increase in 2022 but relatively flat overall since 2000. In fact, 2022 results were only one point away from all time highs. Conclusion? They are severely bucking the international trend, but there is still lots of room to grow.

UK: Similar to the US, we see a relatively flat but technically rising trend. However, 2022 sees a drop to their lowest recorded score. Conclusion? Not a great outlook.

If you want to check out the full results for every country, click here.

How about YOUR classroom:

These averages are from hundreds of thousands of students - it may not reflect your current learners (and that’s okay!). But if your class does reflect the downward trend of the world’s scores, what can we do?

Literacy is unique since we are dealing with reading, writing, and comprehension - all of which can be found in nearly every other subject area. Therefore, practice with guidance and feedback is needed.

Also, bring it back to your students. Traditional topics may not be stimulating enough, even when young people today are arguably (digitally) reading and writing more than ever before. Ask them what they actually want to write about if possible to help with engagement.

This means that your rubrics/marking schemes may need to change away from content-based and head towards more generic literacy based ones (i.e. marking for grammar, structure of arguments, quality of evidence presented, etc.).

Don’t let these PISA results bring you down. Are worldwide trends showing a sharp decrease in literacy? Yes. But does this mean we face a losing battle? Absolutely not.

How do you make your literacy activities more engaging for students?

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References

Tech Talk:

Noredink Corp. (2024). Unlock the power of the written word. Retrieved from https://www.noredink.com/product/overview/

Brainy Bits:

OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en.