So You Want To Talk About The Literacy Crisis... reading wars, critical thinking crisis, & more

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Hi babblers! If you’re reading this then it is officially spring! Pat on the back to us all for making it through, though we still have a couple weeks till the last frost.

Through tiktok debates, bad movie adaptation discourse, & popular headlines I’ve noticed a pattern of using the so called, literacy crisis, to diminish people’s opinions or as a vague term to virtue signal and separate yourself as an intellectual. But what even is the literacy crisis? And how easily can we fall into elitist rhetoric instead of investigating the intersectionality and root of a problem? So let’s chat about the literacy crisis!

Special thanks to my mom, Sarah Hawley, for joining me to have a deep discussion about education, the literacy crisis, and the American school system with her first hand 20+ years experience as an educator.

CLIPS Source:

How literature can help us develop empathy, Beth Ann Fennelly, TED TALK https://www.ted.com/talks/beth_ann_fennelly_how_literature_can_help_us_develop_empathy

Digital Nation, Produced by Rachel Dretzin & Douglas Rushkoff, PBS https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/digitalnation/

Time Stamps:

5:20 Current Events Corner
6:24 Jon Lemon & Georgia Fort – Journalist Arrested
10:37 Remembering Wael Tarabishi – ICE targeting people w/ disabilities
14:21 US/Israel v Iran
16:49 Main Topic: The So Called Literacy Crisis
20:17 The Reading Wars & Literacy Politics
24:04 Literacy Crisis or Critical Thinking Crisis?
25:16 Let’s Talk To An Expert
INTERVIEW STARTS:
26:30 What are the challenges to teaching kids how to read?
37:35 Understanding Literacy Crisis Data
49:55 Phonics vs Whole Language
56:05 The American School System
1:00:06 The Importance of Reading & Complex Texts
1:20:14 Reading & Empathy
1:24:50 AI and Future Crisis
1:26:46 JUST READ!!
1:28:23 Outro

Go Deeper:

Current Events References –

‘Wael’s last wish’: ICE denies release of Texas man for son’s funeral: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/29/waels-last-wish-man-detained-by-ice-denied-release-for-sons-funeral

Why did US and Israel attack Iran and how long could the war last?: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2dyz6p3weo

Federal agents arrest journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for filming protest at St. Paul church: https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/feds-arrest-journalists-don-lemon-and-georgia-fort-for-filming-protest-at-st-paul-church/

Inside the Legal Defense of Georgia Fort and Don Lemon: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/inside-the-legal-defense-of-georgia-fort-and-don-lemon-abbe-lowell-leita-walker.php

Literacy Crisis References –

Whole Language vs. Phonics: The History of the Reading Wars: https://www.lexialearning.com/blog/the-science-of-reading-vs-balanced-literacy-the-history-of-the-reading-wars

Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

‘Harvard Thinking’: What’s driving decline in U.S. literacy rates?: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/whats-driving-decline-in-u-s-literacy-rates/

More than half of American adults read below a sixth-grade level: https://www.investigatetv.com/2025/12/01/more-than-half-american-adults-read-below-sixth-grade-level/

Adult Literacy Facts: https://www.proliteracy.org/resources/adult-literacy-facts/?utm_term=literac

NAEP Stats: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g4_8/?grade=4

That profile of Lucy Calkins in The Atlantic: https://claudegoldenberg.substack.com/p/that-profile-of-lucy-calkins-in-the