According to a September 2, 2025 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas commissioner of education said that as students move from third to fourth grade they move from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”

I disagree. This often-repeated simplistic statement about reading doesn’t describe the complexity of young brains (or old) gleaning information from text. We are always reading to learn, and we are always learning to read.

When children open books before being able to decode the words they’re reading to learn, gathering information from text and illustrations. As an adult, when I’m faced with new types of information or unfamiliar concepts, I’m still learning to read. I’m adding new vocabulary. I’m sounding out words or looking up definitions of unfamiliar words.

We never stop learning to read and our commissioner of education should deepen legislators’ understanding of education rather than reinforce tired old education clichés.