Charlotte is in the midst of a bookstore boom, with many new independent bookstores popping up across the area. At the forefront of the rise are mobile bookstores, operating businesses from repurposed vehicles and bringing books straight to communities. The number of U.S. bookstore companies rose 70% from 2,010 in 2021 to 3,416 in 2025, despite less than half of adults reporting reading a book of any kind in 2022.
The widespread use of artificial intelligence to break down complicated texts by middle and high school students has led North Carolina teachers to weigh different methods of teaching literacy, hoping to combat a trend in what has been called cognitive surrender, the reliance on online sources to interpret text instead of thinking by themselves.
Despite being exposed to more words than ever through social media and other online avenues, 59 million adults have literacy skills at or below level one, meaning understanding of short and simple sentences typically practiced at the 5-7 year old age range.
We examine the cause for this gap, including what researchers have called the reading recession, the lasting impacts of COVID-19 on testing scores, and learning through multiliteracy.
GUESTS:
Rose Horowitch, staff writer for The Atlantic
Ashley Mahoney, reporter for Axios
Angela Wiseman, Ph.D., professor of Literary Education at North Carolina State University
