Nowadays, if you walk into practically any American kindergarten classroom, you’ll notice that something is a little strange. It’s not dramatic or noteworthy in and of itself. However, educators take notice. The words no longer exist as they once did. plain language. Words that five-year-olds knew ten years ago now need to be explained, repeated, and patiently circled back. It seems insignificant until you see how big it really is.
The research supporting the claim that American children are beginning school with smaller vocabularies than they did ten years ago is both thorough and extremely unsettling. The most recent National Education Scorecard, an annual analysis of K–12 student data, presents a picture that extends well beyond the disruption caused by the pandemic. Seventy percent of school districts have lower math scores than they did ten years ago. Reading proficiency has decreased by 83%. In particular, eighth-grade reading has reached its lowest level since 1990. These aren’t rounding mistakes. While the adults in their immediate environment argued over screen time regulations, this generation was quietly slipping behind.
One of the authors of the scorecard, Harvard professor Thomas Kane, called the pandemic “the mudslide that followed seven years of steady erosion.”I was affected by that framing. For seven years. Around 2013, the erosion started, coinciding—not coincidentally, according to most researchers—with the time when social media stopped being optional and smartphones became genuinely common among teenagers. Test-based accountability under No Child Left Behind was recently eliminated by Congress. To put it simply, they turned off the smoke alarms as soon as the fire began, according to Kane.
It’s noteworthy that the mechanism isn’t just students using their phones in class. When cell phone bans are implemented, student achievement only slightly improves. Deeper harm is caused by sleep disturbances, neglected schoolwork, and—most importantly—the decline in reading outside of school. According to reading specialist Nancy Maistrovich, students have been having difficulty with vocabulary for some time. It took time for reading for pleasure to decline. Year after year, it quietly piled up until teachers began to notice that seniors were having trouble understanding words that they should have known by now.
On test days, students stare blankly at questions, according to a social studies teacher. This isn’t because they don’t know history; rather, it’s because they don’t understand what the question is asking. terms such as “static.” Ten years ago, no one needed to define mid-exam terms. That picture of a teen in 2025 sitting in a classroom, defeated not by an idea’s complexity but by the vocabulary needed to access it, is genuinely disorienting.
A sample SAT vocabulary test administered to more than 150 students yielded an average score of about nine out of fifteen. When you take into account that 76% of those same students acknowledged they would skip unfamiliar words while reading rather than look them up, those figures are illuminating rather than disastrous. Context clues are applied optimistically, the word is categorized as “probably fine,” and a slightly incorrect understanding is ingrained. That’s how vocabulary gradually decreases—through cumulative avoidance rather than a sharp collapse.
Some students may carry more language than they actually use. According to one English teacher, students frequently have access to a larger vocabulary than they actually use; they have simply stopped reaching for it and instead fall back on the limited vocabulary found in group chats and comment sections, where the same phrases are used repeatedly. Language is shaped by exposure. That exposure has been significantly reduced by screens.
The states that are actually making progress are doing so by mandating more reading in the classroom, clearly recognizing that children aren’t doing it elsewhere. It is a remedial measure disguised as a curriculum. It’s still very much up for debate whether twenty minutes of required reading in homeroom is sufficient to reverse years of atrophy. Speaking with educators gives me the impression that they are trying to fill a growing hole in their boat. It’s okay for them to continue bailing. But at least as much attention should be paid to the hole.
