Overview
- The paper published July 28, 2026 found a statistically significant association between owning a cellphone and lower reading comprehension for both third- and sixth-graders in a diverse California sample.
- Researchers report that the link held whether or not students brought phones to school, indicating ownership correlated with scores independent of immediate classroom presence.
- Students from homes where English was not the primary language showed a notable exception: those who began texting earlier performed as well by sixth grade as peers without phones.
- The authors stress key limits: the study is correlational and does not prove causation, tests could not measure distraction from notifications because students received almost no alerts during testing, and age at first phone did not predict reading skill.
- The team urges more research on causal mechanisms and on non-academic effects such as social skills, and says policymakers should not assume elementary school phone bans will raise reading scores without further evidence.