The Reading Crisis Paradox: On Moral Crisis and Thought-Terminating Clichés
"In a democracy, the people get the kind of schools they want." Emmett A. Betts (1942)
“Very soon,” wrote Emmett A. Betts [1], “pressure will be felt by elementary school teachers to intensify instruction in certain areas, such as reading. This pressure will be brought to bear by non-educators who have found a deficiency but who may offer no other solution than a ‘stronger prescription’” (p. 226).
Helen R. Lowe [2] told the story of Arthur Young whom she met when he was 24. Young shared with her his high school diploma and evidence of receiving high grades in English during his senior year, yet, even at 28, Lowe declared: “Arthur could not read, even a primer level.”
If you are paying attention to mainstream media as well as social media, these stories seem as fresh as the springtime growth as we enter May 2026.
Yet, the first passage is from 1942, referring to the moral panic over a reading crisis prompted by literacy tests of draftees in WWII.
The second example is from a moral panic book, Tomorrow’s Illiterates: The State of Reading Instruction Today, on a reading crisis published in 1961.
The reading crisis in the US is a thing that has simultaneously always existed and never been real—therein, the reading crisis paradox.
How and why, then, are we trapped in a perpetual cycle of reading crisis?
Two dynamics help explain the current compelling but misguided “science of reading” story that students today cannot read and the concurrent panic that students today do not read—the moral panic dynamic and the thought-terminating cliché.
The term “moral panic” is most often used to describe large and consequential events such as the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare/McCarthy Era.
However, scholars have continued to develop the concept (see “dual panic theory,” for example), recognizing that “moral panic” can also describe events that do not have the negative consequences of major events. As well, the impact of media has shifted, included the role of social media.
The reading crisis paradox fits into a moral panic paradigm that never has the catastrophic outcome the crisis mongers warn about.
Adam and Behl, who proposed the dual panic theory, note that scholars identify five criteria of moral crisis: “concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality, and volatility” (p. 3).
Key to understanding reading crisis as moral panic is the central role of media, as Adam and Behl explain:
A key aspect of these criteria is the influence of mass media on each variable (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994) – the term media should be broadly defined to include both legacy and social media. It should be recognized that the media purposefully feeds their narrative to engage the panic (i.e., purposefully add to the intensity of each of the criteria), to generate more news, and to appeal to the interest of their audiences (Garland, 2008) or, more specifically, to “prey on the fears of its audience” (Burns & Crawford, 1999, p. 157).
As I have detailed [3], Ground Zero of the “science of reading” reading crisis has been the journalism and podcast by Emily Hanford. That work has become “holy text” despite a lack of evidence for most of the claims (see below for how “science of reading” works as a thought-terminating cliché).
The claims of SOR as “holy text” have gained a uncritical repetition throughout mainstream and social media in a way that borders on plagiarism with weekly news stories recasting the same stories about reading (Mississippi “miracle,” Southern Surge, etc.).
The reading crisis moral panic is a perennially compelling story, but the SOR version has nothing distinct among it and all the other reading crisis stories since the 1940s.
Another important aspect of the reading crisis as moral panic is that current examinations of moral panic acknowledge how different groups can respond to the same event, notes Adam and Behl:
This flexibility of consensus allows it to be applied to dual panic theory in that the theory proposes that each group may form a consensus relating to the same incident – but the consensus of each group is different. In other words, two opposing groups form two opposing moral panics from the same incident.
The SOR panic is bi-partisan, supported by conservatives and progressives, even as the core story is driven by conservative ideology (systematic phonics and teacher-centered direct instruction, for example).
A parallel moral panic over cell phones in schools is a good example of different groups responding to the same event and all ignoring the empirical evidence because of a shared belief.
While the five aspects of moral panic are relevant, a central way to understand reading crisis as moral panic is focusing on disproportionality:
Disproportionality is a variable that represents the measure of media exaggeration compared to the real story, so much so that it surpasses the empirical reality of the threat and is achieved by the release of data and information from the media that gives society a false sense of danger (Garland, 2008; Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994; Wright & Miller, 2005). However, disproportionality does not only require data and exaggerated information to heighten societal fears. By reporting on one topic more than another, or by providing ‘evidence’ that is more opinion than fact (or even fictitious), the media can give society a real and heightened sense of danger (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994). This exaggeration is the primary element that creates the perceived danger to society (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994).
Here, the role of the phrase “science of reading” as a thought-terminating cliché helps explain how and why the reading crisis recurs without either the negative consequences warned about or a successful resolution to the crisis; of note is that no education reform since the early 1980s has “worked” just as no reading reform in the US has ever “worked.”
“Thought-terminating cliché” is grounded in the work of Robert Jay Lifton. How does it work?:
Stopping discussion - It signals that the topic is closed, without addressing the substance.
Reducing complexity - It replaces nuance with a single, catchy formula.
Easing dissonance - It helps the speaker (and sometimes the listener) avoid discomfort instead of working through it.
Media and advocates, especially on social media, weaponize “science of reading” in all three ways above; for example, Hanford established in the original story that the “science” on reading is “settled” and, almost cartoonishly, that settled science is the Simple View of Reading.
Another key part of the “science of reading” story has been the misrepresentation of reading test scores on NAEP, blurring the complexity of test data and achievement levels.
“Science of reading” also meets the key characteristics of being a thought-terminating cliché:
Memorable and simple - Easy to repeat and recall.
Definitive-sounding - Presented as obvious or beyond dispute.
Used to dismiss or redirect - Deployed to end or deflect discussion rather than to add evidence or reasoning.
Potentially misleading - It can create a false impression that the issue is settled or not worth examining.
Particularly on social media, anyone who challenges the reading story driving the “science of reading” is framed as being anti-science and not having the best interest of students in mind.
The irony is that many weaponizing “science” to “dismiss or redirect” are themselves politically or financially invested in the reading crisis.
The reading crisis paradox is best understood, then, in the context of moral panic and the thought-terminating cliché.
If we would choose to set aside these recurring panic cycles and to embrace that reading comprehension and teaching reading are ongoing and vibrant debates—and not settled science—we likely would find avenues to better serving the individual needs of students, notably those being mis-/under-served in both traditional and reformed contexts, and better support teachers and professionals.
The paradox of moral panic is that it mostly only serves moral panic and the expected next moral panic..
[1] Betts, E., Dolch, E., Gates, A., Gray, W., Horn, E., LaBrant, L., . . . Witty, P. (1942). What shall we do about reading today?: A symposium. The Elementary English Review, 19(7), 225-256. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41382636 [access HERE]
[2] Tomorrow’s Illiterates: The State of Reading Instruction Today, by Walcutt, Charles Child [click title for access through Internet Archive]; see also Reading Crisis 1961: Tomorrow’s Illiterates
[3] Thomas, P.L. (2024, November). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: For all ELA teachers, “the time is always now.” English Journal, 114(2), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114221
Thomas, P.L. (2024, September). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The media continue to misread teaching reading and literacy. English Journal, 114(1), 14-19. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024114114
Thomas, P.L. (2024, May). Teaching English in the “science of reading” era: We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: Selling a story of reading. English Journal, 113(5), 16-22. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113516
Thomas, P.L. (2024, March). We teach English in times of perpetual crisis: The long (and tedious) history of reading crisis. English Journal, 113(4), 21-26. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113421
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