Podcast Summary: "Rick Riordan and Katherine Rundell Explore the Middle School Reading Crisis"

Podcast: The Book Case (ABC News | Charlie Gibson, Kate Gibson)
Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Overview

In this episode, hosts Charlie and Kate Gibson address the alarming decline in middle school reading proficiency. They’re joined by Maya Daughtery—author of a major report on adolescent reading—as well as best-selling authors Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson series) and Katherine Rundell (Impossible Creatures). The conversation combines statistics, policy insight, powerful anecdotes, and practical advice, exploring why reading drops off among middle schoolers, what’s at stake, and how adults can creatively foster a love of books.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Middle School Reading Crisis

• Stark Statistics: Only 30% of middle school students are reading at or above grade level at eighth grade.
  • Kate Gibson (01:40): "Only 30% of middle school students tested at the eighth grade are reading at grade level or above. That's a pretty daunting statistic."
• The Covid Myth: The crisis predates COVID-19—pandemic learning loss made it worse, but it wasn’t the root cause.
  • Charlie Gibson (02:30): "Covid did not create the middle school reading problem... it highlighted it, it exacerbated it."
• Dropoff in Reading for Fun: Reading for enjoyment decreases sharply after early childhood—down to 47% among ages 8-12, even in book-buying families.
  • Charlie Gibson (02:55): "57% of kids 4 to 7 are reading for fun, but that drops to 47% of the 8 to 12 year olds... those are for book buying families."
• Access to Books: Libraries and community lending shelves are crucial for families who can’t buy books.
  • Kate Gibson (03:25): "The library is there for you... There are ways to get books into the hands of kids, I promise you."

Interview with Maya Daughtery (Report Author, Former Teacher)

Why Is This Happening?

• Breakdown in Reading Instruction: After early grades, “reading” gets split into mechanics (phonics, decoding) and comprehension—but beyond 5th grade, students get content-area teachers, not reading specialists.
  • Maya Daughtery (05:17): "In secondary grades, students move from having a standalone reading teacher to discipline-specific teachers. None of them shoulder the burden of teaching reading."
  • Maya Daughtery (07:35): "A competent reader will know how to shift, internally, how they approach that text. But those are skills that are taught for many students; they're not intuitive."
• Widening Gaps: Struggling readers fall further and further behind—by the time they reach college, many can’t tackle long or complex texts.
  • Maya Daughtery (08:30): "Students who are already struggling to read, that struggle gets even... It intensifies in magnitude over time."
  • Maya Daughtery (08:55): "We have college students who no longer read full novels... Entry level college professors say, 'I can't assign a text. My kids can't make it through.'"
• Raising the Reading Age: Classic texts are being pushed up into higher grades, indicating a decline in skill.
  • Maya Daughtery (09:30): "I'm watching how texts that I know we read in elementary and middle school being pushed up to high school."

What Should We Do?

• Recommendation 1: Better Assessments
  • Targeted, high-quality reading assessments should look at decoding, fluency, and comprehension—even for middle schoolers.
    • Maya Daughtery (11:14): "We need high quality, grade appropriate assessments that provide specific data on the literacy needs of middle school students."
• Recommendation 2: Rethinking Time
  • Schools need flexible schedules to fit reading instruction across the day, since there's no "extra" time to add more.
• Recommendation 3: Address Reading Across Subjects
  • Content area teachers need support to teach discipline-specific reading skills.
• Recommendation 4: Community-wide Effort
  • Everyone—parents, teachers, bus drivers—has a role. Example: A bus driver aunt keeps books on the bus.
    • Maya Daughtery (11:14): "Every single one of us has a role to play in a child's reading development."

The Power of Intrigue: The "Reading Minute"

• Anecdote
  • Daughtery shares a story about an 8th grader who hated reading but was hooked by a one-minute teaser from Bill Bryson’s "A Short History of Nearly Everything." He went on to read the whole book.
  • Maya Daughtery (14:08): "You can turn a student who will declare proudly, 'I don't like reading,' into first a sheepish reader, then a proud reader."
  • Key: Both skill and interest must converge for reading to take root.

On Critical Thinking

• Reading and critical thinking must go hand in hand—kids need to evaluate claims, especially in today's world of misinformation.
  • Maya Daughtery (13:16): "Do you understand what is being said, the position the author is coming from, and what's your ability to make sense or truth out of that?"

Authors’ Roundtable: Rick Riordan & Katherine Rundell

Unique Needs for Middle School Readers

• Rick Riordan (22:07): "The middle grades are formative in so many ways... that's why it’s such a crucial pivot moment where we either create readers or we do not."
• Katherine Rundell (23:02): "Children at that age need a sense of autonomy, a sense that they can be thrust into the heart of an adventure... they need good jokes on every page. And I think they also need philosophy."

The Secret Sauce: How to Write for Middle-Graders

• Don’t talk down to them—distill big ideas, inject adventure and humor, respect their intelligence.
  • Katherine Rundell (24:56): "Children are the most ruthless readers. They will not stand by while you elongate or pontificate."
• Relevance and fun are key.
  • Rick Riordan (23:58): "If it does not feel relevant, if it is not engaging... they will tell you right away."
  • Rick Riordan (23:58): "The answer should be because you love it, because it's fun, because it opens new doors, and because you see something of yourself in the characters that you're reading about."

Fantasy & Relatability: Seeing Oneself in Stories

• Fantasy offers metaphors for real-life conflicts; kids see themselves—even in mythical creatures or demigods.
  • Katherine Rundell (26:00): "Fantasy is a way of injecting huge possibility into a story... a dragon can be both a dragon, but it can also stand in for everyday terrors."
  • Rick Riordan (26:34): "If you think about the situation of being a demigod... every middle school child... feels caught between worlds. They are at an in-between point."
• Fantasy as vehicle for big themes (e.g., climate change, loss), but with humor and delight.
  • Katherine Rundell (28:19): "...if you can cast it in the shape of griffins and sphinxes and unicorns, I think it is easier for them to metabolize, easier for them to face... Fantasy as philosophy’s most gorgeously painted cousin."

What Authors Get Wrong / Pitfalls

• Talking down to kids, offering "committee-written"/celebrity books without real respect or challenge, or only aiming for “easy” content.
  • Katherine Rundell (29:11): "Books that do not assume that they have the same capacities that we have... a child is not a different species."
  • Rick Riordan (29:56): "There is a false conception sometimes that writing for children is easier than writing for adults... my experience has been that the reverse is true."

On Screens & Digital Reading

• Concern that bright, engineered digital distractions erode book reading.
  • Katherine Rundell (32:07): "Screens... they eat your attention like a wolf. And I think it is so hard to addict a child to something like a book when there is something that will give you a bright, shiny light every three seconds."
  • Katherine Rundell (32:07): "Maybe even with legislation... to make sure we don't lose a generation... because we also need readers if we are to have a democracy."
• Modeling reading is critical. Kids need to see adults valuing books.
  • Rick Riordan (33:15): "If the adults in your life make time to read, that sends an enormously important message..."

The Magic of Children’s Imagination

• Kids can willingly suspend disbelief and invest emotionally in stories, sometimes even more than adults.
  • Katherine Rundell (34:09): "'Obviously it's not true... Is it true?'... their imaginations are big enough to hold the possibility."

Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• Kate Gibson’s “Book Nerd” Declaration (00:50)
  "I am a proud book nerd. I think everybody around should be a book nerd."
• Maya Daughtery on Widening Gaps (08:30)
  “The gap of their reading gets wider and wider at a faster rate. Last year, the Atlantic wrote... students are not reading full text, complex text, or deeply complex text the way they were 30, 40, 50 years ago."
• Rick Riordan on Modeling Reading (33:15)
  "If the adults in your life never read, but they're telling you to read, well, that sends quite a different message."
• Katherine Rundell on Delight vs. Pedantry (29:11)
  "Child love is real love. Child fear is real fear... when we are trying to make them into lifelong readers who deserve the very best of us."
• Riordan’s Demigod Metaphor (26:34)
  "If you think about the situation of being a demigod... every middle school child... feels caught between worlds."
• Rundell on Fantasy and Big Ideas (28:19)
  "Fantasy as philosophy’s more gorgeously painted cousin."

Practical Advice & Calls to Action

• Model Reading: Adults must demonstrate reading for pleasure; reading culture begins at home.
  • Rick Riordan (37:46): "If you're not picking up a book for fun on the weekend, why are you expecting your child to do that? Because you are their model."
• Broaden Access: Libraries, public lending boxes, and shared reading help bypass financial barriers.
• Celebrate All Reading: Whether it’s a cereal box or epic poetry, building the habit and the pleasure matters most.
  • Katherine Rundell (37:58): "What we want is for them to associate words and just real lasting pleasure."
• Make it Personal: Connect books to children’s interests—dinosaurs, adventures, sports, fantasy—whatever lights their fire.
• Don’t Underestimate: Challenge kids with big themes and complex texts; respect their intellect and emotional depth.
• Address Digital Distraction: Advocate for policy changes and mindful use of technology to re-center books in children’s lives.

Episode Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:37 – Episode opening, setting the problem
• 04:26 – Interview: Maya Daughtery on the reading crisis
• 11:14 – Daughtery’s recommendations for schools and policymakers
• 14:08 – The “reading minute” strategy to hook kids
• 21:49 – Authors’ roundtable: Rick Riordan & Katherine Rundell
• 23:58 – Riordan & Rundell on writing for middle schoolers
• 26:00 – Fantasy as metaphor for real life
• 29:11 – What publishers get wrong & the vital importance of respect
• 32:07 – On the impact of screens & how to counteract it
• 33:15 – The role of adult modeling
• 37:46 – Closing: Riordan and Rundell’s final advice

Conclusion

The episode underscores that middle school is a pivotal—often neglected—moment for cultivating lifelong readers. The crisis is real but surmountable, and solutions require every adult (not just teachers) to get creative, get involved, and model a culture of joyful reading. If you want kids to love books, show them what it means to do so—out loud, every day, in every way you can.