Facing a Global Child Reading Crisis

Imagine going to school every day, but never learning your ABCs. Or picture yourself flipping through a book only to see pages full of symbols, unaware of their meaning or the stories they tell.

For more than a third of all primary-school age children around the world, that’s a reality they face every day. Even though more children are enrolled in school today than ever before, the fact remains that 250 million 5-to 12-year-olds cannot read or write, whether they are in school or not. Going to school isn’t enough to ensure learning. And some children – those living in extreme poverty, girls and those with few books or no one to read to them at home – need an extraboost to gain basic reading skills. The gap in reading ability between strong and struggling readers widens with age. That’s why it’s critically important that children learn to read in the early grades, so that they can then read to learn.