PIRLS 2021 and PISA 2022 showed significant declines in Danish students’ reading competence (Fougt et al. 2023; Gissel 2023), as well as we internationally have seen the largest decline ever. One proven factor here is the covid 19-pandemic (Kennedy & Strietholt 2023); however the waste majority of the public debate in Denmark following PIRLS 2021 and PISA 2022 focuses on digitalization, also at governmental level. The Danish Minister for Culture argued to abandon digitalization in schools, our Prime Minister claimed that smartphones were the biggest threat towards our children, and The Minister for Education gave a public excuse for ‘the digital experiment’ in schools. Several opinions makers and some researchers argue for screen restrictions in education (eg. Ågård, 2021; Rashid et al. 2024). This paper challenges this standing point with the hypothesis that the waste digitalization of Danish schools and the habituation of teachers and students might have helped to prevent a larger decline in Danish students’ reading competence during the pandemic, as schools relatively easy could transfer to online teaching. The paper mainly draws on PIRLS data and focuses on the comparable Nordic Countries with the following research question: How can digitalization be seen as a positively influencing factor on students reading competence during the pandemic? In 2022, Denmark was world ranking no. 1 for the third successive time in the latest UN E-government survey on digitalization (UN 2022). PIRLS 2016-2021 data show that Danish schools have been more digitalized for a longer time compared to all other PIRLS participants, also the other Nordic countries. Both in PISA and PIRLS we see a minor decline in students’ reading competence in Denmark as compared to the other Nordic countries, and at the same time, Denmark was by far the most school-closed country within the Nordic countries during the pandemic. This paper discusses this explanatory approach, and it is also including development in SES and in spoken language at home as other possible explaining factors.

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