INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) recently released results from the 2022-2023 Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination (IREAD-3) assessment, which show that too few Indiana students have mastered foundational reading skills by the end of third grade: nearly one in five students are still struggling to read at this key milestone.
Dr. Katie Jenner, Indiana Secretary of Educationnoted “Today, nearly one in five Indiana students is unable to read by the end of third grade. This is a crisis that could have a long-term negative impact on Indiana’s economy and negative repercussions throughout our society. We have no time to waste, and together, we must urgently work to improve reading outcomes for Indiana students, including supporting both current and future educators with the knowledge and tools necessary to teach our students to read using evidence-based literacy instruction, rooted in science of reading.”
Statewide, results show that more than 65,000 Indiana’s third grade students – or 81.9% – demonstrated proficient reading skills on the assessment. This is a minimal improvement of 0.3 percentage points over results for the 2021-2022 school year.
Indiana’s third grade literacy rates have been dropping for a decade, even prior to the academic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, results remain 9.5 percentage points below the state’s highest-ever proficiency rate (91.4%) during the 2012-2013 school year.
In total, nearly 15,000 third grade students – or 18.1% – will need additional support to meet grade-level reading standards. Overall, reading proficiency improved slightly for Black students, students receiving free or reduced-price meals, students in special education, as well as English learners, but declined for Hispanic students. Continued improvement for all student populations will be essential to achieving the statewide goal of 95% of students passing IREAD-3 by 2027. Today, 242 Indiana elementary schools have achieved this 95% goal, an increase of 32 elementary schools over 2022.