By
Ecential Team
March 30, 2026
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Updated:
March 30, 2026
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5 min read
The data is in, and it's not pretty. A new NWEA report tracking students through the 2024–25 school year confirms what many early childhood educators have been feeling in their classrooms for a while now: reading scores for the youngest learners are stagnant — and they're not recovering the way math scores are.
First and second graders across the country are still performing below pre-pandemic benchmarks. Researchers say the problem isn't just about missed school days or disrupted instruction. They're pointing to something broader — a systemic erosion of the early literacy habits and experiences that once filled the years before kindergarten. And that points directly to the early childhood space.
The children walking into ECE classrooms today were infants or not yet born when COVID-19 upended daily life. They didn't "miss school." But they did miss something: the rich, language-filled, experience-driven environments that build the neural pathways for reading.
Museum trips. Playdates. Story time with a grandparent. These weren't luxuries — they were literacy infrastructure. And for many children, especially those from lower-income households, those years were spent largely at home with limited stimulation.
The result? A generation of early learners who are arriving with smaller vocabularies, less phonological awareness, and fewer print concept skills than their pre-pandemic counterparts — and the gap isn't closing on its own.
1. Make Read-Alouds Non-Negotiable This sounds simple, and that's the point. Daily structured read-alouds — done with intentionality, discussion, and repetition — are among the most evidence-backed literacy interventions available. Train your educators to treat read-aloud time as sacred instructional time, not a filler activity.
2. Teach Phonological Awareness Early and Often Children don't need to be in kindergarten to start learning how sounds work. Rhyming games, syllable clapping, and sound isolation activities belong in your toddler and preschool rooms now. Don't wait.
3. Bring Families Into the Equation Researchers are flagging a significant drop in parents reading regularly to their young children. Your programs have a direct line to those families. Send home book bags. Host "Reading Night" events. Make it easy and fun. A child who is read to at home and at school is getting double the intervention.
4. Conduct Regular Informal Literacy Checkpoints You don't need a standardized test to know if a child is tracking print, identifying letters, or engaging with stories. Build short, consistent observation checkpoints into your routines and use that data to flag kids who need more support early — before they hit kindergarten already behind.
5. Advocate for Pre-K Investment in Your Community States like California, New York, and New Mexico are expanding pre-K access precisely because the evidence is overwhelming that high-quality early education drives long-term literacy. ECE leaders have the credibility and the data to walk into school board meetings, city council sessions, and state legislative offices and make the case for more investment. Use it.
The reading crisis didn't start in first grade. It started well before that — and so does the solution. ECE leaders are not just childcare providers. You are the first educators of a generation that desperately needs you to show up with intention, knowledge, and advocacy.
The data is alarming. But the opportunity to make a difference has never been bigger. This is why we are ECEntial.