In 1994, as a collective effort to address the decline in literacy rates and dwindling interest in reading across the country, the National Education Association (NEA) established March as ‘National Reading Month.’ In the over 30 years since, it has become a big celebration for schools nationwide to encourage kids and adults to read.
One of those schools has been Groves High School, which has been hosting games and activities for the month, most recently a matching game where students are able to match teachers with their favorite books. While events like these aim to promote reading, concerns about its declining importance in the classroom have grown in recent years.
With literacy rates declining and a lack of interest among students, longtime Groves English teacher John Rutherford emphasized the importance of reading in the classroom.
“I think reading is incredibly important,” Rutherford says. “It is the basic skill for success in all academic areas regardless of what you’re doing in your career or your future, whether it’s college, whether you’re going into the military, whether you’re going to a trade, it all involves reading.”
According to U.S. News, 77% of Groves students are proficient in reading, a remarkable feat compared to the state average of 45%. While Groves prides itself on its reading proficiency, others statewide fall behind. Michigan ranks 44th in reading proficiency in the country according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), meaning the state is in the midst of an early literacy crisis.
This was confirmed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer at her 2026 State of the State Address on Feb. 25, with her office reporting that 61% of 3rd grade students cannot read at their grade level. Whitmer and her office are now proposing to invest $645 million into literacy education in an attempt to help this crisis. This follows years of declining NAEP grades since 2003, where Michigan dropped from around the national average at 28, down to 44.
While it’s difficult to map out exactly how the literacy crisis is affecting Groves High School, due to a lack of public records being kept, the website Public School Review states Groves had an 87% literacy proficiency level in 2011, found through Michigan’s 2011 MEAP records. This marks a 10% drop in 15 years.
Students have begun to notice the decline in reading among their peers. One student, junior Max Inchaustegui, has expressed his thoughts on the state of reading at the school.
“If we’re talking about how much reading is valued currently, it really isn’t at all,” Inchaustegui says. “Most people I know only ever read when they’re required to for a class, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen someone with a book reading just because they want to.”
The decline can possibly be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further exacerbated the literacy crisis among other learning crises across the world, with Groves High School specifically still scoring as high as 86% up until 2020. While it’s unclear which aspects of the pandemic caused the decline, many believe it stunted focus among students across the world, some of which have started to turn to other methods to do their work for them, primarily in the form of AI which has been a cause for concern from teachers and students alike.
“I do not think students read,” Rutherford said. “I think what has happened is students are using AI or other systems to summarize, but they actually do not have the perseverance to read the text and figure out for themselves what it says.”
“I think AI has a huge part in this. It makes kids lazy, there’s no need to put much effort into anything which explains why literacy rates are declining,” says Inchaustegui. “Why would you want to read a book, even if it’s assigned, you can get all the information through a two sentence prompt.”
As local and statewide governments continue to address the literacy problem, significant steps are being taken including the creation of the “Every Child Reads” plan, which would increase reading training and tutoring across the state, along with a student smartphone ban beginning in the 2026-27 school year, and further restrictions on AI in the classroom.
