About the NAEP Reading Assessment

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the U.S. Department of Education and is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what our nation's students know and can do in select subjects. The NAEP reading assessment uses literary and informational texts to measure students' reading comprehension skills. Students read grade-appropriate passages and answer questions based on what they have read. Results at grades 4 and 8 are reported for the nation overall, for states and jurisdictions, and for districts participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA); results for grade 12 are reported for the nation only.

The 2022 NAEP reading assessments at grades 4 and 8 were administered as digitally based assessments. Read more about the NAEP Digitally Based Reading Assessment.

NAEP Samples

The schools and students participating in NAEP assessments are selected to be representative of all schools nationally and of public schools at the state/jurisdiction and Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) district levels. The results from the 2022 reading assessment at grades 4 and 8 are based on the representative samples of 108,200 fourth-graders from 5,780 schools and 111,300 eighth-graders from 5,190 schools who took the assessment on tablets. Samples of schools and students are drawn from each state and from the District of Columbia and Department of Defense schools. The sample of students participating in the TUDA school districts is an extension of the sample of students who would usually be selected by NCES as part of national and state samples for the NAEP assessment. Representative samples of 24,100 fourth-grade and 24,900 eighth-grade public school students from 26 urban districts participated in the 2022 reading assessment. Fresno did not participate in 2022. The 26 TUDA districts that participated in 2022 are listed below.

2022 TUDA DISTRICTS

AlbuquerqueDallasJefferson County (KY)
AtlantaDenverLos Angeles
AustinDetroitMiami-Dade
Baltimore CityDistrict of Columbia (DCPS)Milwaukee
BostonDuval Country (FL)New York City
Charlotte-MecklenburgFort WorthPhiladelphia
ChicagoGuilford County (NC)San Diego
Clark County (NV)Hillsborough County (FL)Shelby County (TN)
ClevelandHouston

The results from the assessed students are combined to provide accurate estimates of the overall performance of students in the nation and in individual states and other jurisdictions. Results for the nation reflect the performance of students attending public schools, private schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, and Department of Defense schools. Results for states/jurisdictions and for districts reflect the performance of students in public schools only and are reported along with the results for public school students in the nation. Charter schools are included in the public school samples at the state level. For TUDA districts, beginning in 2009, results for charter schools are included in district results only if they contribute to the district's Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report to the U.S. Department of Education. For the District of Columbia, beginning in 2009, TUDA results for DCPS do not include charter school results due to a change in the education governance structure for the District of Columbia. In 2019, results for Los Angeles at grades 4 and 8 and Fresno at grade 4 did not include affiliated charter schools. It is possible such an exclusion can affect score trend results. For example, NCES found that the exclusion of affiliated charter schools in the 2019 Los Angeles sample had a small effect on trend results for Los Angeles in grade 8 reading, accounting for 2 points of the 9-point score increase from 2019 to 2022. Download the summary data tables via the link at the bottom of the page to see the national, state/jurisdiction, and district sample sizes for the 2022 reading assessment.

The results from the 2019 reading assessment at grade 12 are based on a national sample of approximately 26,700 twelfth-graders from 1,780 schools who took the assessment either on paper or tablets. Results are reported for the nation only and reflect the performance of students attending public schools, private schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, and Department of Defense schools. Download the summary data tables via the link at the bottom of the page to see the national sample sizes for the 2019 grade 12 reading assessment.

Each school that participated in the assessment, and each student assessed, represents only a portion of the larger population of interest. The results are weighted to account for the disproportionate representation of some groups in the selected sample, including the oversampling of schools with high concentrations of students from certain racial/ethnic groups and the lower sampling rates of students who attend small schools. Read more about NAEP sampling and weighting in the NAEP Technical Documentation.

NAEP Inclusion

Assessing representative samples of students, including students with disabilities  (SD) and English learners  (EL), helps to ensure that NAEP results accurately reflect the educational performance of all students in the target population and are a meaningful measure of U.S. students' academic achievement over time.

To ensure that all selected students from the population can be assessed, many of the same accommodations that SD and EL students use on other tests are provided for those students participating in NAEP. Accommodations were first made available for the reading assessment in 1998. The 1998 reading assessments used a split-sample design to make it possible to continue reporting trends in students' reading achievement and, at the same time, to examine how including students assessed with accommodations affect overall assessment results. Separate samples of students were assessed with each of the administration procedures (accommodations permitted and not permitted samples). In the report, the first year with a split sample—1998—shows results for the accommodations permitted sample and for the sample assessed without accommodations. For subsequent assessment years, only results from the accommodated sample are shown. Read more about accommodations available in NAEP. In the NAEP digitally based reading assessment, accommodations such as a text-to-speech for directions were universal design elements integral to the delivery system and available to all students.

Even with the availability of accommodations, some students may still be excluded. Differences in student populations and in state/jurisdiction and district policies and practices for identifying and including SD and EL students should be considered when comparing variations in exclusion and accommodation rates. States/jurisdictions and districts also vary in their proportions of SD and EL students (especially EL students). Download the summary data tables via the link at the bottom of the page to see the percentages of SD and/or EL students identified, excluded, and assessed in reading in 2022.

Because providing accommodations represented a change in testing conditions that could potentially affect the measurement of changes over time, split national samples of students were assessed in 1998—one sample permitted accommodations and the other did not. Although the results for both samples are presented in the tables and figures, any comparisons to 1998 in the text are based only on the accommodated sample.

The National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP, has been exploring ways to ensure that NAEP continues to appropriately include as many students as possible and to do so in a consistent manner for all jurisdictions and districts assessed and reported. In March 2010, the Governing Board adopted a new policy outlining specific inclusion goals for NAEP samples. At the national, state, and district levels, the goal is to include 95 percent of all students selected for the NAEP samples, and 85 percent of those in the NAEP sample who are identified as SD or EL. Read more about the inclusion policy and how the percentages of students are calculated.

All of the states/jurisdictions and districts participating in the 2022 NAEP reading assessment met or exceeded the 95 percent inclusion goal for grades 4 and 8.

Download the summary data tables via the link at the bottom of the page to see the inclusion rates in reading at grades 4 and 8 for states/jurisdictions and the 26 participating TUDA districts in 2022.

School and Student Participation

National participation

To ensure unbiased samples, NAEP requires that participation rates for original school samples be 70 percent or higher to report national results separately for public and private schools. In instances where participation rates meet the 70 percent criteria but fall below 85 percent, a nonresponse  bias analysis is conducted to determine if the responding school sample is not representative of the population, thereby introducing the potential for nonresponse bias.

Before replacing originally sampled schools that declined to participate with substitute schools, the weighted national school participation rates for the 2022 reading assessment were 94 percent for grade 4 (100 percent for public schools, 37 percent for private schools, and 67 percent for Catholic schools), and 95 percent for grade 8 (100 percent for public schools, 35 percent for private schools, and 61 percent for Catholic schools). In 2019, these percentages were 84 percent for grade 12 (88 percent for public schools, 35 percent for private schools, and 55 percent for Catholic schools). In 2022, the school participation rates for private schools at grades 4 and 8 did not meet the criteria so their results are not reportable. This is also the case for the grade 12 reading assessment in 2019.

In 2022, the school participation rates for the original Catholic school samples at grades 4 and 8 fell below the NAEP reporting standard of 70 percent or more. At grade 4, the results from the Catholic school nonresponse bias analysis showed no evidence of nonresponse bias for school characteristics evaluated in the analysis after school substitution and adjusting for school nonresponse. At grade 8, there was bias among the school characteristics evaluated in the nonresponse bias analysis after school substitution and adjusting for school nonresponse, which gives rise to potential bias in performance results. It was determined that the potential bias was not enough to prohibit the reporting of performance results. Furthermore, it was determined that the sample sizes for participating Catholic schools at grades 4 and 8 are sufficient to support reporting reliable estimates for Catholic schools in 2022. 

In 2022, the weighted student participation rates were 92 percent at grade 4 (92 percent for public school students, 94 percent for private school students, and 95 percent for Catholic school students), and 89 percent at grade 8 (89 percent for public school students, 95 percent for private school students, and 95 percent for Catholic school students). In 2019, these percentages were 72 percent at grade 12 (71 percent for public school students, 79 percent for private school students, and 78 percent for Catholic school students).

State and TUDA participation at grades 4 and 8

Standards established by the National Assessment Governing Board require that school participation rates for the original state/jurisdiction and TUDA district samples need to be at least 85 percent for results to be reported. In 2022, all 52 states and jurisdictions and 26 TUDA districts met this participation rate requirement with participation rates of 91 to 100 percent.

Download the summary data tables via the link at the bottom of the page to see the participation rates in reading for the nation, states, and the 26 participating districts.