Too Many Young Readers Still Aren’t Making the Grade

By fourth grade, kids often hit the books to learn about new sub­jects, and this is one of many rea­sons why strong read­ing skills are vital to their aca­d­e­m­ic success.

The KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter tracks the per­cent­age of fourth graders who are not pro­fi­cient in read­ing — and there’s both good and bad news to share.

The good news? Read­ing scores for fourth graders steadi­ly improved over the last 5 years. These gains occurred through­out the coun­try, across all racial and eth­nic groups and regard­less of fam­i­ly income levels.

The bad news: Despite these improve­ments, rough­ly 2 out of 3 fourth graders failed to score pro­fi­cient in read­ing in 2015.

Among fourth graders of col­or, 82% of black stu­dents, 79% of Lati­no stu­dents and 78% of Amer­i­can Indi­an stu­dents were read­ing at a below-pro­fi­cient lev­el in 2015.

Explore new edu­ca­tion achieve­ment data — at the nation­al and state lev­el — in the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter.

• Fourth grade read­ing achieve­ment levels
• Fourth graders who scored below pro­fi­cient read­ing lev­el by race
• Fourth graders who scored below pro­fi­cient read­ing lev­el by school income
• Fourth graders who scored below pro­fi­cient read­ing lev­el by fam­i­ly income
• Fourth graders who scored below pro­fi­cient read­ing lev­el by dis­abil­i­ty status

• Eighth grade read­ing achieve­ment levels
• Fourth grade math achieve­ment levels
• Eighth grade math achieve­ment levels
• Eighth graders who scored below pro­fi­cient math achieve­ment lev­el by race