Arizona high school student joins World Literacy Foundation effort to boost reading proficiency

The World Literacy Foundation is working to solve the ongoing literacy crisis by letting students raise awareness and plan events.

Only 36% of Arizona’s third graders read at grade level, according to data from the Center for the Future of Arizona. According to the World Literacy Foundation, 770 million people around the world cannot read a single word.

Yatharth Tomar, a senior at Sandra Day O’Connor High School in Phoenix, is Arizona’s 2026 youth literacy ambassador, joining 900 students from over 100 countries in the World Literacy Foundation initiative.

Tomar said he wanted to get involved after seeing Arizona’s literacy crisis firsthand in local schools.

“Reading is specifically an issue because to this day it’s treated more as a commodity, but it should be treated as a right. Everyone should have the ability to read and understand effectively what they are reading and gain some knowledge out of that. That is what informs citizens and informs adults for the future of our community,” he said.

How Arizona high school student Yatharth Tomar promotes literacy

The students involved will be responsible for planning events in their regions to increase reading. Tomar has a head start, with an online tutoring program he started to help students in Arizona and India. He also plans to hold book drives and awareness projects.

“Some books that I would personally love for people to read are books that I personally read as part of my AP curriculum, [including] ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Lord of the Flies,’ fictional books which tell a larger story and have a deeper meaning about bettering the betterment of society as a whole,” he said.

Tomar also said an increase in artificial intelligence and other technology is making it harder for people to retain literacy skills beyond reading words on a page.

“People end up relying too much on these tools that are accessible to them and they lose the basic skills of being able to read efficiently through their reliance on AI or social media or any other technological platforms which is supposed to increase literacy but unfortunately has the effect of actually taking away the skill from the people,” he said.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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