Students' IREAD scores inch up. Indiana's efforts to combat literacy decline start to show progress

Reading competency among Indiana's third graders slightly improved from last year, but the overall performance remains close to the lowest level in the past decade and continues to highlight persistent gaps in academic achievement among students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Test results released Wednesday are another indication of the difficulty for children to recover academically from disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. State education leaders touted the overall pass rate incrementally improving every year since 2021, and that recent effort to support teachers in new literacy training is paying off.

But the scores remain far behind achievement before the pandemic.

Statewide, 82.5 percent of nearly 82,000 third graders at public and private schools passed the 2024 Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination – or IREAD-3. About 14,300 students did not pass. This is an improvement of 0.6 percentage points over last year's results.

Around 91 percent of students passed the text when it debuted in 2012-13 and in the following years. But the passage rate began to slide and was 87.3 percent before the pandemic.
 

In response to the state's literacy decline, state leaders, educators, and philanthropic organizations took swift action. Gov. Eric Holcomb set an ambitious target of 95 percent reading proficiency for all third graders by 2027.

To achieve this, a new law requires that K-12 reading curricula and teacher training at state colleges align with the science of reading — evidence-based practices that emphasize phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

During the meeting, Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said the increased focus on training educators in the science of reading through the state’s literacy cadre program led those students to stronger success on IREAD-3. Around 75 percent of eligible schools opted into the group.

“What we're looking at right here is an outstanding thing,” Jenner said. “It's unbelievably exciting because it moved the needle significantly more.”

Some schools in the cadre jumped more than 20 percentage points on the assessment. Travis Koomler, principal of Pleasant Run Elementary School in Warren Township, said the cadre’s support helped teachers make significant improvements. 

Students passed at 82 percent rate in 2024 — a rebound from 54 percent in 2021 and an increase from the pre-pandemic score.

"Ensuring Hoosier students are able to read is key to not only the future of Indiana, but to the individual success of every child," Holcomb said in a statement. "The historic literacy investments we have made over the past several years are beginning to show return on investment, which is a testament to the hard work of teachers, families and students in every corner of our state. Let's keep this positive momentum going.”

Passing the IREAD-3 assessment is a key indicator of a student's readiness to learn through reading starting in the fourth grade. Without a strong foundation in phonics and phonemic awareness, elementary students may struggle to decode words, leading to difficulties in reading fluently and accurately. Without these foundational skills, students can fall behind as they grow older and lack the ability to learn new skills.

Racial disparities in the pass rate persist, showing significant gaps in academic performance between students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Scores improved for Black students, with a 3.2 percentage point increase from 2023 to 2024, and decreased by 0.3 percentage points for Hispanic students.
 

The pass rate for both groups was 68.6 percent — nearly 14 percentage points less than the state average. Their White classmates continue to pass at a higher rate of 88.3 percent. 

About 78 percent of schools administered IREAD-3 to second grade students this last school year, after only 38 percent of schools participated the year before. 

Jenner said expanding the test to more students has made a difference. 

“Allowing that to be taken in grade two was in many respects, a big bet for us as a board, because it's another assessment,” Jenner said during the State Board of Education meeting. “We allowed it to be opt-in. We saw the numbers grow with schools who opted in.”

The IREAD-3 pass rate also differed among school types. Public school students passed at a rate of 81.5 percent, behind the 92.5 percent of students attending private schools.
 

Rachel Fradette is the WFYI Statehouse education reporter. Contact Rachel at rfradette@wfyi.org.

Eric Weddle is the WFYI education editor. Contact Eric at eweddle@wfyi.org.