Anticipating the Needs of Future Law Students Based on Current Post-Pandemic National Reading Comprehension Test Scores

Authors

Nicole R. Chong, J.D., Penn State Law

First & Last Page

1-50

Abstract

The current state of education in the elementary, middle, and high school levels regarding students’ reading comprehension skills is bleak. Post-pandemic scores are showing up to a thirty-year backslide in reading comprehension testing scores. These concerning decreases do not bode well for students who may enter law schools one day. Let’s anticipate those needs by thinking ahead of ways to remedy potential shortcomings. Reading comprehension is tied closely to the skills of critical reading and thinking. Other scholars have written extensively in the legal academia field about critical reading and thinking. In fact, no one likely would dispute that critical reading and thinking are necessary skills for law students and lawyers. However, this article ties reading comprehension to these other skills and discusses the ramifications of current national testing for reading comprehension to potential deficits in those skills in future years.I have had the opportunity to teach a remedial upper-level course that has experimented with the teaching methodologies of modeling, scaffolding, and assessments to help students needing additional help with critical reading, critical thinking, and writing after the first year of law school. The article discusses how the remedial instruction could be implemented broadly across the first-year curriculum, which importantly would address more systemic deficiencies with reading comprehension, critical reading, and critical thinking earlier in law students’ experiences. This article, therefore, is a call to action for law schools to begin to plan ahead and provides some feasible techniques to address future students’ needs in regard to reading and thinking.

Recommended Citation

Nicole R. Chong, J.D., Anticipating the Needs of Future Law Students Based on Current Post-Pandemic National Reading Comprehension Test Scores, 11 Lincoln Mem’l U. L. Rev. (2024).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmunet.edu/lmulrev/vol11/iss2/1