What Percentage of Students Are Proficient in Reading? Understanding the Latest NAEP Results

How many students in the United States are proficient in reading?

You may have seen alarming statistics claiming that nearly 70% of fourth graders cannot read at grade level. The latest national reading results are concerning—but that statement doesn't accurately describe what the data mean.

According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 31% of fourth-grade students performed at or above NAEP Proficient in reading. Sixty percent performed at or above NAEP Basic.

That means:

• 31% performed at or above NAEP Proficient.
• 69% performed below NAEP Proficient.
• 60% performed at or above NAEP Basic.
• 40% performed below NAEP Basic.

Those numbers deserve attention. But before concluding that 69% of fourth graders are “below grade level,” it is important to understand what NAEP is actually measuring.

Does 69% Below NAEP Proficient Mean 69% Are Reading Below Grade Level?

No.

This is one of the most important distinctions to understand when reading national literacy statistics.

NAEP specifically states that NAEP Proficient does not represent grade-level proficiency as defined by state or district assessments. Instead, NAEP Proficient represents competency over challenging material on the NAEP assessment.

So these two statements do not mean the same thing:

69% of fourth graders performed below NAEP Proficient.

and

69% of fourth graders cannot read at grade level.

The first statement accurately describes the 2024 NAEP results.

The second cannot be concluded from those results alone.

This distinction matters because overstating the statistics can make the situation sound different from what the assessment actually tells us.

What Do the NAEP Reading Levels Mean?

NAEP reports student performance using three achievement levels: Basic, Proficient, and Advanced.

NAEP Basic

NAEP Basic indicates partial mastery of the knowledge and skills considered prerequisites for NAEP Proficient.

In 2024, 60% of fourth graders performed at or above this level, meaning approximately 40% performed below it.

NAEP Proficient

NAEP Proficient represents competency over challenging subject matter, including knowledge, application, and analytical skills.

Again, it is not intended to mean “reading at grade level.”

In 2024, 31% of fourth graders performed at or above NAEP Proficient in reading.

NAEP Advanced

NAEP Advanced represents superior academic performance.

In 2024, 8% of fourth graders performed at the Advanced level.

Are Fourth-Grade Reading Scores Declining?

The recent trend is concerning.

The average fourth-grade reading score in 2024 was 2 points lower than in 2022 and 5 points lower than in 2019.

The percentage of fourth graders performing at or above NAEP Proficient also fell to 31% in 2024, two percentage points below 2022.

But the longer-term picture is more complicated.

The 2024 percentage of fourth graders at or above NAEP Proficient was not statistically different from the percentage in 1992, the first year of the reading assessment. The average 2024 score was also not significantly different from the 1992 average.

So it would be inaccurate to say that American reading performance has simply declined continuously for decades.

There were periods of improvement followed by substantial recent declines.

What Is Especially Concerning About the Latest Reading Results?

One of the most troubling parts of the 2024 results is what has happened among lower-performing readers.

NAEP reported declines across multiple points of the performance distribution, including the 10th, 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles. The decline at the lower end has been particularly pronounced.

For example, the fourth-grade score at the 10th percentile fell from 168 in 2019 to 158 in 2024. At the 25th percentile, it fell from 197 to 189 over the same period.

In other words, looking only at the percentage reaching Proficient doesn't tell the entire story.

A substantial group of children is struggling with reading skills, and the lowest-performing readers have experienced especially large declines in recent years.

Why Are So Many Students Struggling With Reading?

There isn't one simple explanation.

National assessment results tell us what students demonstrated on the assessment. They don't, by themselves, tell us why an individual child struggles or establish a single cause for national changes.

Reading is complex.

To become a skilled reader, a child gradually coordinates multiple areas of knowledge and skill, including:

• phonemic awareness
• knowledge of letter-sound relationships
• decoding and blending
• spelling patterns
• automatic word recognition
• fluency
• vocabulary
• background knowledge
• oral language
• comprehension

A weakness in one area can affect another.

For example, a child who has to work very hard to decode nearly every word may have fewer mental resources available to concentrate on the meaning of the passage.

Another child may read words accurately and fluently but struggle to understand the vocabulary or ideas in the text.

That is why “struggling reader” isn't a diagnosis of one particular problem.

The first step is finding out where the difficulty is occurring.

Look at the Child, Not Just the Reading Score

National statistics help us understand the scale of a problem.

They cannot tell us what an individual child needs.

A child who performs below expectations may need more explicit instruction in phonemic awareness.

Another may know individual letter sounds but struggle to blend them into words.

Another may decode accurately but so slowly that reading becomes exhausting.

Another may read fluently but have difficulty understanding what was read.

And another may understand the skill during a lesson but have difficulty retrieving it later without additional practice.

This is why observation matters.

Instead of simply asking:

“Why can't this child read?”

ask more specific questions:

Can the child hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words?

Are letter-sound relationships automatic?

Can the child blend sounds into words?

Can the child recognize common spelling patterns?

Does the child repeatedly sound out words that have been encountered many times?

Can the child read connected text accurately and fluently?

Does the child understand what was read?

Those answers give us much more useful information than a single reading score.

Strong Reading Instruction Builds Skills Together

Children need explicit instruction in how written language works.

That includes teaching the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters, helping children blend those sounds to read words, and teaching common spelling patterns systematically.

But reading development doesn't stop with decoding.

Children also need repeated opportunities to apply what they have learned in words, sentences, and connected text.

Reading and spelling can reinforce one another.

Vocabulary and background knowledge support comprehension.

Reading aloud exposes children to language and ideas that may be beyond what they can yet read independently.

Writing gives children another opportunity to connect sounds, spellings, words, and meaning.

And purposeful visual, tactile, and kinesthetic supports can make abstract concepts more concrete while children are learning them.

The goal is not for a child to remain dependent on a picture, motion, manipulative, or other scaffold.

The goal is to use those supports strategically while the child develops the knowledge and automaticity needed for independent reading.

Different Children May Need Different Amounts of Support

Children don't all reach reading milestones at exactly the same time or respond identically to the same lesson.

One child may need only a few exposures to a spelling pattern before using it independently.

Another may need to see the pattern, say it, build words with it, write it, sort examples, and encounter it repeatedly in connected text.

That doesn't mean we need different definitions of reading for different children.

The destination remains skilled, independent reading.

But the amount and type of support needed to reach that destination can differ.

At Child1st, this has long been an important part of our approach: observe how a child responds to instruction, identify where the learning is breaking down, and provide meaningful ways for the child to engage with the skill.

What If My Child Is Reading Below Expectations?

Don't begin with the national percentage.

Begin with your child.

Look at what your child can already do and identify the next skill that isn't yet secure.

If you're not sure where the difficulty lies, our guide Signs of a Struggling Reader: 10 Characteristics to Look For can help you identify patterns to watch for.

If you already know your child is behind, How to Help a Struggling Reader Catch Up walks through the major reading skills and explains how to build a plan for moving forward.

And if you're beginning at the foundation, How to Teach a Child to Read: A Step-by-Step Guide explains how phonemic awareness, phonics, word recognition, fluency, writing, and comprehension fit together.

If difficulties persist despite appropriate instruction and practice, talk with your child's teacher or another qualified professional about what additional assessment or support may be appropriate.

What Should We Take Away From the Reading Statistics?

The latest national reading results give parents and educators good reason to pay attention.

Only 31% of fourth graders reached NAEP Proficient or above in reading in 2024, while 40% performed below NAEP Basic. Recent scores have also declined, particularly among lower-performing students.

But the statistics need to be communicated accurately.

69% below NAEP Proficient does not mean 69% of fourth graders cannot read at grade level. NAEP itself explicitly warns against equating its Proficient achievement level with grade-level proficiency.

The numbers also cannot tell us why a particular child struggles.

For that, we have to look more closely.

What does the child already understand?

Where does reading begin to break down?

What instruction has the child received?

What happens when the concept is presented in another meaningful way?

What does the child need to practice until it becomes automatic?

National statistics can alert us to the size of the challenge.

Helping children become successful readers happens one child—and one carefully identified skill—at a time.