You Can’t Teach a Love of Reading in a Classroom
Literacy continues to fail because kids don’t read, and now, students in the San Francisco Unified School District are the test subjects of a new experiment.
By Marrion Cruz
Literacy continues to fail because kids don’t read, and now, students in the San Francisco Unified School District are the test subjects of a new experiment.
The district hopes this overhaul will finally close the literacy gap. But no program can succeed if children don’t read beyond the classroom. If we want to improve literacy, we need to rebuild the culture of reading at home.
After two decades under the same reading curriculum, SFUSD is piloting a new literacy program to help students catch up. The district adopted a phonics-based approach in 2024, shifting from a long-criticized “balanced literacy” model that experts say left many students decoding poorly.
As someone who was an obsessive childhood reader, and now raises a five-year-old who began reading at three, I’ve seen how easily a love of books can vanish when reading becomes an assignment instead of a ritual. Spencer Russell, a literacy expert at Lovevery, recently asked parents online why they don’t read to their kids. Many answered, simply that their kids don’t like it.
According to SFUSD’s own Literacy Insight video update (2025), early data show improvement in phonemic awareness but uneven progress in comprehension, especially among English learners.
In San Francisco, too many children start kindergarten without recognizing a single word. SFUSD’s new pilot showed modest gains in its first year (2024–25), but no curriculum can replace what begins at home.
Nationwide, the picture is similar: U.S. high-school students are losing ground in reading and math, with pandemic-era setbacks still visible in test scores. Even among elite college students, reading stamina has collapsed. As The Atlantic reported, many admit they “can’t finish books” anymore. The problem starts long before college. The New York Times recently found that boys, in particular, are falling further behind in reading than girls.
Despite literacy’s bleak outlook, there remain corners of libraries and community rooms where supporters of the cause do what they can to uphold the value of childhood literacy.
At Berkeley’s Reading Rainbow library program, children earn stamps for every book they finish, turning reading into a community game.
At 826 Valencia, a nonprofit founded by writer Dave Eggers that supports students in developing their writing skills, young readers thrive in a room disguised as a pirate ship. It works because it feels like play. Rebuilding literacy may require the same trick: turning duty back into delight.
Across the street is the International Youth Library, another nonprofit working to uplift and showcase young creatives of San Francisco. Jade Howe, IYL’s resident librarian, said the loft, above a narrow metal staircase, was the most popular spot in the library’s pink interior.
During a visit to the library, Howe pointed out newspapers written by middle-schoolers, which featured blatant political imagery that some adults might have filtered out.
“Kids should be free to think and write what they want, it’s refreshing,” Howe said.
As Howe suggests, the loss of a literate youth results in a generation that is largely restrained, growing up with their noses against Plato’s cave, finding comfort in their oblivion of the realms of thought that become increasingly more alien with each passing year.
