Whats the current situation—how well are Americas children reading?
Our students are not reading nearly well enough. As mentioned earlier, results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress on reading showed that only 31 percent of the nation’s fourth-graders performed at or above the proficient achievement level, thus demonstrating solid academic performance. And, while scores for the highest-performing students have remained the same, and those of America’s lowest-performing students have slightly increased, the achievement gap remains wide (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2002).
