Performance-Level Results

Performance-Level Summary

Long-term trend performance levels describe the range of reading skills demonstrated by students when responding to assessment questions of increasing difficulty. Within the NAEP long-term trend 0 to 500 reading scale, there are five performance levels: 150, 200, 250, 300, and 350. While all five performance levels are applicable at all three age groups (age 9, age 13, and age 17), younger students are more likely to successfully respond to questions that reflect the lower performance-level descriptions than to those that reflect the higher performance-level descriptions.

Results are reported as the percentages of students scoring at or above each performance level. For age 9, performance-level results are presented for at or above 150, 200, and 250. While some assessment questions are administered at more than one age group, cross-age comparisons in student performance results are not supported by the data. Because results are reported separately for age-based samples, performance-level descriptions should not be interpreted as indicating that students at different ages demonstrate equivalent skill profiles.

Performance Levels for Age 9 in 2025

Level 150 Carry Out Simple, Discrete Reading Tasks

of students performed at or above 150 in 2025

Level 200 Demonstrate Partially Developed Skills and Understanding

of students performed at or above 200 in 2025

Level 250 Interrelate Ideas and Make Generalizations

of students performed at or above 250 in 2025

Performance-Level Trends

Higher percentages of 9-year-old students at or above 150 and 200 performance levels compared to 2022 

Compared to 2022, the percentage of 9-year-olds performing at or above level 150 increased by 3 percentage points in 2025, and the percentage of 9-year-olds performing at or above level 200 increased by 4 percentage points. Compared to the pre-pandemic results in 2020, the percentages of students performing at or above each of the three performance levels were not significantly different in 2025. Compared to 1971, the percentages of students performing at or above each of the three performance levels were higher in 2025.

Click on a performance level from the “SET BASELINE AT LEVEL” options to see the percentage of students performing at or above that selected performance level.  

Display As

Set baseline at level

Figure Trend in NAEP long-term trend reading performance-level results for 9‑year‑old students

Sample Questions

NAEP Questions Tool

See the NAEP Questions Tool to learn more about released long-term trend reading questions from the previous assessment years. See examples of students’ answers to constructed-response questions, scorer comments, and the percentage of students who answered each question correctly.

Age 9 Age 13

NOTE: The NAEP long-term trend reading scale ranges from 0 to 500. Results for 1971–1999 are from the original assessment format (including an original assessment sample in the 2004 Bridge Study), and results for 2004–2025 are from the revised assessment format. See more information about the two assessment formats and the 2004 Bridge Study. Results are not shown for data points where the sample sizes are insufficient to permit a reliable estimate or where data are not available. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding or the omission of categories. Although the estimates (e.g., average scores or percentages) are shown as rounded numbers in the charts, the positions of the data points in the graphics are based on the unrounded numbers. Unrounded numbers were used for calculating the differences between the estimates, and for the statistical comparison test when the estimates were compared to each other. Not all apparent differences between estimates are statistically significant.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 1971–2025 Long-Term Trend Reading Assessments.