Reading is no longer intuitive. We reach for phones instead of books. Less than half of Utah’s third grade students (48%) are reading on grade level, an astounding fact published by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute .

One out of two children in the state of Utah cannot read proficiently. For the past five years, that percentage has basically remained steady. Out of Utah’s 852 public schools this year, the Utah State Board of Education celebrated 60 schools that have achieved a reading rate of 70%. While this is a positive trend, all of our schools should at the very least hit this minimum requirement.

This quiet reading crisis in our state and across the nation will eventually explode into unskilled workers faced with limited possibilities. National data shows that only 31% of studen

See Full Page