NAEP Report Card: Reading

NOTE: Beginning with the 2017 assessment, NAEP reading results are from a digitally based assessment; prior to 2017, results were from a paper-and-pencil-based assessment. The NAEP reading scale ranges from 0 to 500. Accommodations were not permitted in NAEP reading assessments prior to 1998. Results are not shown for those states with insufficient sample sizes to permit reliable estimates or where data are not available. Black includes African American, and Hispanic includes Latino. Race categories exclude Hispanic origin. In compliance with new standards from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for collecting and reporting data on race/ethnicity, additional information was collected beginning in 2011 so that results could be reported separately for Asian students and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander students. Students who identified with two or more of the racial/ethnic groups (e.g., White and Black) would have been classified as "other" and reported as part of the "unclassified" category prior to 2011, and classified as "Two or More Races" in 2011 and later assessment years. Results for these students are presented under the "Two or More Races" category in the graphics and tables in this report. Trend results for "White," "Black," "Hispanic," "Asian/Pacific Islander," and "Two or More Races" presented in this report are based on the 6-category race/ethnicity variable with data available starting in early 1990s. For the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) eligibility category, results have been reported since 2003 when the quality of the data on students' eligibility for the program improved. Because students' eligibility for NSLP may be underreported at grade 12, the NSLP results at grade 12 are not included in this report. Beginning in the 2014–15 school year, states could additionally categorize students as eligible for NSLP by including them in their Community Eligibility Provision; therefore, the percentage of students categorized as eligible has increased in comparison to 2013. Readers should interpret NSLP trend results with caution. The information about "Eligibility for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP)" variable is based on available school records. If school records were not available, the student was classified as "Information not available." The category "students with disabilities" includes students identified as having either an Individualized Education Program or protection under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The results for students with disabilities and English learners are based on students who were assessed and cannot be generalized to the total population of such students. See more information about student group variables. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. Although the estimates (e.g., average scores or percentages) are shown as rounded numbers, 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, 1992–2022 Reading Assessments.