How many students struggle as readers? What percentage
of students in the United States are behind in reading?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas including reading. Nationally representative samples of 213,100 fourth-graders and 168,200 eighth-graders participated in the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading. At each grade, students responded to questions designed to measure their reading comprehension across two types of texts: literary and informational. According to the most recent report released in late 2011, 33% of all students in the fourth grade read below the basic level, and 24% of all eighth grade students read below the basic level.

The most recent study of adult literacy in the United States was published by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) in 2003 and is a nationally representative assessment of English literacy among American adults age 16 and older. Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), NAAL is the nation's most comprehensive measure of adult literacy. Over 19,000 adults participated in the national and state-level assessments, representing the entire population of U.S. adults who are age 16 and older.

The report concluded that 30 million adults — 14 percent of adults (over age 16) are functionally illiterate and that another 63 million adults — 29 percent of adults don’t read well enough to understand a newspaper story written at an eighth grade level. Among the over 200 million adults (age 25+) in the United States in 2010 approximately 15% have NOT earned a high school diploma or an equivalent degree (American Community Survey).

Obviously the number of struggling readers spanning in ages from early elementary grades through adults is vast. The question then becomes how is it possible that a nation that has spent more money on reading education than any other nation in recorded history has such a high percentage of its citizenry perform so dismally in reading?

Return to At-Risk and Struggling Readers Home Page

Continue to page 3 of At-Risk and Struggling Readers Section of this website.

.