NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment Results:
Reading and Mathematics

Reporting reading performance-level results

Long-term trend performance levels describe the range of reading skills demonstrated by students when responding to assessment questions. Results are reported in terms of the percentages of students attaining each performance level. Changes in the percentages at or above each performance level reflect changes in the proportion of students who demonstrated the knowledge and skills associated with that level.

The five performance levels are applicable at all three age groups (age 9, age 13, and age 17); however, the likelihood of attaining higher performance levels is related to a student's age. The performance-level results presented for each age are those that are most likely to show significant change across the assessment years. For this reason, only three performance levels are discussed for each age. For age 9, performance-level results are presented for at or above 150, 200, and 250. Read more about the setting of long-term trend performance levels.

See all NAEP LTT reading performance-level descriptions.

Higher percentages of 9-year-olds at or above each performance level compared to 1971

Compared to 1971, higher percentages of 9-year-old students performed at or above each of the three performance levels reported for that age. The percentages of students performing at or above level 200 and at or above level 250 have increased by 13 and 7 percentage points, respectively. The percentage of students performing at or above 150 was 3 percentage points higher than the percentage in 1971, but 1 percentage point lower in comparison to 2012.

What 9-year-olds know and can do in reading

The item map below illustrates a range of reading behaviors associated with scores on the long-term trend reading scale. The cut scores for the three performance levels reported at age 9 are highlighted in boxes on the scale. The descriptions of selected assessment questions indicate what students need to do to correctly answer multiple-choice questions or the level of comprehension students demonstrate when responding to constructed-response questions. For example, 9-year-olds with a score of 233 were likely to be able to infer the characters' feelings based on the story dialogue.