NYC NOW - NYC Is Overhauling How Students Learn to Read. But Is the Joy of Reading Paying the Price?

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

New York City schools are overhauling the way students learn to read through a literacy initiative known as NYC Reads, built around the “science of reading” movement. City officials say the approach is already improving reading scores. But some teachers, parents and students say the curriculum relies too heavily on worksheets, rigid lessons and short excerpts, leaving students with fewer opportunities to immerse themselves in full books. WNYC’s education reporter Jessica Gould joins us to discuss the debate over phonics, reading stamina, and whether schools are improving literacy at the expense of fostering a love of reading. Photo: Wavebreakmedia via Getty Images -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. I've watched some kids in seventh and eighth grade totally unplug. They come to me and they're like, miss, this is so boring. I miss talking about books. Like, they miss it. New York City students are reading fewer books these days. Instead, they're spending more time building skills around each book.

On today's episode, we discuss NYC reads. the city's literacy overhaul and the cost of improving reading scores. But first, here's what's happening in our area. Commuters are suffering the consequences of the Long Island Railroad strike. Mona Reed is one of an estimated 275,000 people who rely on the railroad

for their daily commutes. It's a chaos, and I wasn't expecting this. I'm tired. I'm not a young person anymore, as you can't see. Governor Kathy Hokel is encouraging New Yorkers who can to work from home during the strike. And one Long Island resident able to do that, fortunately for us, is WNYC's deputy editor, Sean Bowdage. Sean, where are you right now? Describe the scene for us. So I just got back from the Huntington LIR station. Huntington is on the north shore of Long Island just across the border into Suffolk County.

This is normally a bustling train station packed with commuters every day, the parking lot full of cars. but as you might imagine, pretty quiet scene today. There was a lone MTA police officer there. There were two groups of transit workers on either side of the tracks, holding signs, waving at drivers passing by. But other than that, a very quiet scene. This strike came as no surprise to you, Sean, both as an editor, but also as an informed Long Islander.

Remind us, how did we get here? The strike essentially went into force early, Saturday morning after the MTA and the five unions that represent a majority of the railroads workforce failed to reach a contract deal. The main sticking points at this stage are pay raises and work rules. And I should note, this is the first LIR strike since 1994. So it's been many decades. Now, as you might imagine, you know, trying to accommodate the tens of thousands of commuters who move to and from the city from Long Island every day is not an easy feat. The railroad sees about 275,000 customers every day.

So without the trains running, the MTA has put shuttle bus service in place. So shuttle buses will be running to and from six locations on Long Island, Huntington being one of them. But the capacity is pretty limited. Roughly 13,000 people will be able to utilize the shuttle bus service. So, again, a far cry from normal train service. And these buses will be running every morning from 430 to 9 and then every evening during rush from 3 to 7. Now, if you commute outside of those hours, you'll have to figure out another way to work and back home again. We talked about the nearly 300,000 commuters who depend on the L-I-R to get to work.

If this strike were to go on and continue, what does a week-long strike look like for commuters? So the thousands of commuters who rely on the railroad to get to work each and every day and who have to physically be at their job, obviously are now having to navigate a rather lengthy commute via the shuttle bus. that get people to subways that allow them to access the city. But these commutes are likely to be much longer than their rail commutes. So a lot of patience and a lot of stress on the part of commuters today. That's WMYC's deputy editor, Sean Boutich, joining us from Long Island. In other news, jurors at Luigi Mangione's upcoming state trial will not see several key pieces of evidence

police found when they arrested him. A Manhattan judge ruled Monday that prosecutors cannot show the jury a cell phone, a loaded magazine, passport, wallet, or a computer chip that officers found in Mangione's backpack. The judge says police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, found those items through an illegal search. But the judge says officers followed proper protocols when they later found a gun, a silencer, and a notebook. So those items can be used as evidence. The DA's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The New York Knicks will face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Knicks fans had been waiting for over a week to find out who the team would play after sweeping Philadelphia to win the second round of the NBA playoffs. Cleveland defeated the Detroit Pistons in a grueling seven-game series in their second round. The Knicks are in their second straight Eastern Conference finals and are looking to advance to their first NBA finals since 1999. Game one of the Best of Seven series is Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. We got to take a quick break, but when we return, we'll dig into the science of reading. New York City's literacy overhaul has students going deeper into understanding how to read instead of falling in love with books.

More on that in a minute. Stay close. So, Janae, what do you remember about the books that you read in middle school, high school? What are your memories? Listen, middle school reading, I know why the cage bird sings. That's where I fell in love with Maya Angelou. I remember it very clearly. I remember holding that book in my hands as well. It was so good. So good.

Yeah, for me too. I remember there were some that were a slog, like The Odyssey. Yeah. It was a tough one. But Song of Solomon, the Great Gatsby. Yes. These are the books that I returned to again and again and that I fell in love reading. But for kids now, reading in class looks different than it.

used to look. There are fewer books, and they're spending more time building skills around each book. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. For a lot of people, middle school meant reading books, lots of them, maybe even reading at home because you got hooked to your book. But in New York City classrooms, that experience is changing. The city's literacy overhaul, known as NYC reads, is built around a growing. body of research often called the science of reading, and city officials say it's already improving reading scores. But some teachers and parents worry because of these changes, students are spending less time immersed in full books and more time working through boring

excerpts and worksheets. And as a result, classes are reading fewer books in a year. Some kids say it's just plain old boring. Educators and parents are asking an even bigger question. Is learning to read coming at the cost of loving to read? WNYC and Gothamist Education reporter, Jessica Gould, has been digging into this one. Jessica, welcome to the show. Thank you. You spoke to one teacher who has seen how reading instruction has changed over the years. Tell me about this instructor.

So I talked to someone named Jessica Beck. She's a middle school teacher in the Bronx. She's been teaching for about 20 years. And she says, you know, earlier in her career, and really until recently, students would read upwards of 20 books a year. And that would be in little book clubs they had that she would facilitate or, you know, some independent reading. But now they have this new curriculum, which is part of this citywide mandate. The program is called NYC Reeds.

And now they're reading four books a year. That's a big difference. It's a big difference. And that's actually very common. It's common across the city because four to seven books are really what's required in the new Now, they go deep on these books. So as you had mentioned, they have a lot of supplementary material. Maybe that's excerpts or articles. For example, with Percy Jackson, it's a favorite for many. They do a unit on Greek mythology that pairs with it and maybe even learn about a particular Greek god and make a

presentation. Talk about going deep. Yeah. And then on hidden figures, they read speeches and have debates about space exploration. So it's taking longer to go through these books and each unit has a quiz or a test. Teachers, some of them, feel that this curriculum is just way too rigid. And it doesn't give them an opportunity to respond to the students' own interests or current events that are happening and, you know, make tweaks to the curriculum because of that. Beck says that some of her students are pushing back. I've watched some kids in seventh and eighth grade totally unplug. They come to me and they're like, miss, this is so boring. I miss talking about books and miss, like, you remember when we used to do booklet? Like, they miss it. I understand that you

talk to a student too, though, right? I did. Ursula Gluckman is a middle schooler from Brooklyn, and here's what she had to say. So at my school, most of the stuff that we do is just filling out worksheets. It's like a typical day is either in a class, you take notes on a video, and and then answer very specific questions on the video, or they just give you a worksheet for you to fill out about, like, for example, in ELA, after we read a book, we just have to, like, answer these very specific questions on a chapter. But, like, I don't know.

I don't really like that because it doesn't give much room for the imagination or interpretation of the book. I feel there shouldn't be a wrong. answer when everybody has their own interpretation of a book. Jessica, what's driving this change? So proponents of this approach say that, you know, there's a good reason for this. Literacy rates in New York City and across the country have been at crisis levels. So, you know, a few years ago, nearly half of students were not reading at grade level.

And the statistics were even worse in black and Latino communities and less resourced schools. And people say it was because the city was using this flawed approach. City officials and many experts said this previous approach that was popular and happening at a lot of schools was failing too many students. It glossed over the building blocks of reading, phonics and vocabulary, comprehension, and used like disproven methods, guessing at words from pictures or clues in the context. And as a result, they weren't learning how to decode words, you know, how to put letters. together in combination to make sounds and words. Former Mayor Adams, as you remember, who is dyslexic, he launched this new initiative called NYC Reads, and that's this major literacy overhaul to align with what's called the science of reading. And that refers to that

explicit focus on phonics and other foundational skills, like vocabulary and building knowledge. And so the city has invested millions of dollars in new curricula that officials say are aligned with best practices. This all went out to elementary schools and these changes have already been happening there. And now it's being expanded to middle schools. Middle schools have to make the change to this new vetted curricula by fall 2027. Man, Jessica, this is making me feel like a dinosaur. I mean, I'm realizing that reading instruction doesn't resemble how I was taught, you know, back in the 90s. How is this going for students? Well, there are some promising signs. Test scores in reading are up. So in New York City, test scores went up 7.2% in state tests on reading in grades 3 to 8.

And now, you know, it was barely half of students reading proficient. Now 56.3% of those students are testing proficient. So there's still a ways to go. But it is progress. And I spoke to Danielle Junta, who is the deputy chancellor for teaching and learning for the city's public schools. And she is the main voice on this new initiative. and she says the results speak for themselves. It really was a game changer when we were able to center a shared curriculum and a shared belief so that when we're noticing things and we're giving feedback and we're trying to, you know, make improvements, we're all sort of moving together. Okay, so city data is showing us that this is working.

Reading scores have indeed ticked up. But what's the issue here? Well, I mean, we heard it, right? teachers and kids are saying that it's boring, it's rigid. I've talked to, you know, people across the board who say that the emphasis on phonics in the early grades, you know, those letter sounds, learning that in an explicit way in pre-K, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, that's really important. You know, kids won't be able to love reading if they can't read. But there are more questions about what some are calling this boxed curricula or this corporate curriculum.

that's come down that really dissects each book and, you know, has all of these worksheets to fill out. So here is teacher Jessica Beck, who we heard from before. Here's what she said. Educators in the state of New York need a master's degree. You know, if you're trusting them, coach them. If you don't like what's going on in their classroom, what should have been happening is coaching, not buying corporate curriculum. And I talk to multiple parents who are also worried. So I talked to Jonathan Goldman, who is an English professor as well as a parent at Manhattan School for Children. And he says his kids' English assignments come home. And it really looks more like test prep.

And he's worried that kids aren't building the stamina to become real readers. We keep being told that our kids don't have the attention span anymore that previous generations did. And I think that they don't have the attention span because they haven't been given enough opportunities to stretch out their attention. man, frankly. And I have a firm belief that reading 200 consecutive pages of following characters or 300 or 400 consecutive pages builds a muscle that there's no other way of building in terms of following along characters and clues to a story and plot developments and building empathy. This is, you know, the big question right now, and I have anxiety as a parent talking about it, because we're so concerned about our kids' attention and stam.

Yeah. And I think the question is, are they able to cultivate the same joy of falling in love with books when they're going through these exercises bit by bit by bit? Yeah. You know, Jessica, I'm wondering also because now that they're reading these books in this way and comprehending them in this way, I guess you don't even develop wanting to pick up a book on your own. Well, actually, city officials emphasize that whole books are still at the core of the curriculum. Kids are still getting physical books. Okay. And they're going through them.

They're just going through them more slowly with other exercises and activities to draw out the learning and make sure that they are building knowledge on historical events, that they are able to learn new vocabulary and really steep in this story in a new and different way. Yeah. And, you know, as we mentioned earlier, this is working. Reading scores are going up. So how should we view that progress with the concern that kids are spending less time reading? I called an expert Susan Newman at NYU. She's a professor of childhood literacy, and I've been talking to her through the whole rollout of this new initiative. And she says that she thinks that things are moving in the right direction.

It's important that we are now working on those letter sounds and building those. foundational skills. But it's always a balance. And she said in her world of this literacy debate, the pendulum is always swinging. And it's really hard to find the right balance. And she thinks that now that some of those foundational skills are in place, they have to work on building in more time for students reading the books that interest them. I really think that one of the things we need to do, and we may be neglecting to some extent. We forget that reading has a purpose and that reading is motivating and that we need to ensure that our kids see reading as something fun and joyous. And the way in which you do that is you provide time in school day to give children the

opportunity to have choice in reading something, something that might be too difficult. in some ways for them to read. But an opportunity for them to actually take a book, hold a book that is based on their interest and try and understand some of what is on that page. So even the supporters of these reforms say that there's still work to be done. There's room for improvement. And this isn't something that's just happening here in New York, right? Right.

I mean, this issue of how much kids are reading and is that changing, are they reading? fewer books, do they have the stamina? These are national questions that school districts are grappling with. Just this past week, we got a new study that said that four books, which is what we have here in New York, four to seven for middle schoolers, that is the average number of books kids are reading in school right now. Wow. So New York City is part of, you know, it is aligned with the national average. Yeah. And it also comes as there's new studies that show that student achievement in reading really plummeted, you know, over the last decade and a half. It's starting to tick back up, and New York City is part of that. But it predated the pandemic. There were a lot of

people who saw the pandemic as the watershed moment when student learning and achievement really fell off. But it was actually closer to 2013, you know, when there was full saturation of smartphones and tablets. Yeah, that'll do it. Tablets. And so, So I think as we look at this question of how do we teach reading, we also have to be paying close attention to the role that screens are playing in schools and at home. So this data is promising, but it's part of a broader context. And clearly there are areas where improvement is needed. Yeah, definitely. You mentioned that they're reading four to seven books a year.

I remember reading four books in a summer. Well, the summer is coming. Let's hope that you and others will follow in your footsteps and read books like that again. Yeah, yeah. That's WNYC's education reporter, Jessica Gould. Thanks a lot, Jess. Thank you. And thank you for listening to NYC Now.

I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next time.