By Katherine A. N. Gillies, Literacy Specialist and Author

NAEP Trends & National Impact 

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Report Card measures student performance in core subjects among a representative sample of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students nationwide. The 2024 Reading Assessment results indicate a decline in average reading performance across all grades, with a continued regression among 12th-grade students, where only 34% demonstrated proficiency (NAEP, 2024). Proficiency represents a critical level of understanding at each stage of learning. Students performing below proficiency are more likely to struggle with essential comprehension tasks. These challenges appear in both earlier and upper-grade applications.

In earlier grades, students may have difficulty with:

• Interpreting multiple meanings of words
• Making inferences
• Identifying problem–solution relationships
• Drawing conclusions about complex ideas
• Using context clues effectively
• Making clear text-to-self connections

In upper grades, students may struggle with:

• Recognizing an author’s craft and purpose
• Understanding text structures and features
• Constructing arguments and identifying evidence
• Making text-to-world connections

Local Impacts 

Massive data studies have the potential to leave educators, advocates, and even families feeling hopeless when trends don’t shift upward, cultivating a sense of pressure and fatigue. Although this information may seem detached and even irrelevant to what is happening in local spaces, NAEP, like other national measures, can serve as an informative barometer, prompting an intentional review of policy, practices, and systems. Still, it is crucial not to let a downward trend overshadow the key progress already underway.  While the 2024 NAEP report highlights the invasive crawl of illiteracy, it also prompts stakeholders to critically examine their local data, instructional practices, and engage in evidence-based improvement practices, calling all to plant seeds that will take root and perpetuate literacy development. 

The Literacy Crisis: Responding Locally 
Developing an initial action plan that is local, digestible, and tangible is key to moving the needle of the larger systemic crisis. One of the most practical ways to begin is by diving into the data you already have in a focused way.

1. Gather

Begin by taking a fresh look at local data. While you have already reviewed national data, what does your local information reveal? What similarities do you see? Any differences? Starting with what’s nearby helps frame the real conditions your students are experiencing.

2. Investigate

The next step is drilling down this data to the classroom level. A single average score may be a solid barometer for a group, but it doesn’t help teachers understand how to respond or support specific student needs within a larger context. A few reminders help ground this work:

• A global comprehension score reflects a reader’s strengths and weaknesses. Understanding a student’s strengths and weaknesses as a reader is a cornerstone of strategic instruction.
• Many schools collect benchmarking data regularly, but when that data is stored without analysis, it offers little instructional value. Testing without analysis not only reduces instructional time but also diminishes the purpose of intentional assessment.
  Engaging in analysis, even at a foundational level, can drive an instructional response rooted in evidence rather than a hunch.
• If multiple data points are available, prioritize growth metrics for students who have room to grow, especially those below proficiency. Growth percentiles, in particular, help contextualize a student’s progress among peers with similar starting points. Students with lower initial scores often grow the most, while those already operating at higher proficiency tend to show slower growth simply because they have less room to move. This type of growth measure is powerful because it captures growth and acknowledges that not all growth is the same, providing insight into the impact of interventions.

3. Collaborate

Finally, consider collaboration as a lever for shifting the literacy paradigm. Identify resources and colleagues who are already engaged in student-centered, strategic conversations. Where are these conversations happening in your building? Who do you naturally talk to when you’re thinking through instruction? Sometimes, it just takes one colleague to create a critical collaboration space.

Literacy is not a sedentary skill; it progresses and accelerates from one application to another: from one content area and discipline to the next, from one family member to another, and even more remarkably, from one generation onward. The NAEP Reading Report catalyzes action, urging all stakeholders to gather and investigate local data and collaborate to identify key resources focused on developing student literacy skills beyond proficiency.