At the classroom level, faculty are reporting that students arrive unprepared for long-form reading expectations and are struggling with processing words on the page. Pepperdine’s Wilson described needing to shift tactics—such as reading passages aloud and discussing texts repeatedly across the semester. The reported approach frames pedagogical adaptation as maintaining standards while changing methods, particularly for first-year and humanities courses. The coverage also suggests students’ comprehension gaps are showing up even when they have completed in-class reading time. For higher education institutions, the immediate concern is assessment validity: if reading readiness diverges, institutions may need to revisit placement, support staffing, and learning outcomes in courses that assume prior literacy benchmarks.