Dive Brief:
- Students in K-2 showed little to no progress for reading readiness, according to end-of-school-year data for 2025-26 compared to the year before in a new report from Amplify, an assessment and curriculum provider.
- National composite scores found that 66% of K-2 students are on track for learning to read with 34% of young learners scoring below benchmark. This is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and since the 2020-21 school year that early reading readiness has failed to improve from year to year, according to the report.
- Amplify recommends districts use a multi-tiered systems of support that coordinates instruction, intervention, progress monitoring and teacher professional development to help young students build reading skills.
Dive Insight:
When the data is broken out by grade level, it shows that kindergartners maintained last year’s benchmark levels at 70% who are on track for reading, while early reading proficiency for students in grades 1-2 fell slightly.
The analysis also examined subtest data, which can reveal a specific skill where students need support. For this report, Amplify looked at 1st and 2nd graders’ performance in oral reading fluency, which measures how many words a student reads correctly in an unpracticed passage. It is considered one of the best indicators for young learners’ reading progress, Amplify said.
Amplify’s data shows students’ oral reading fluency performance trailing overall composite benchmark results. That indicates many young readers may be limited in their reading accuracy and rate, the report said.
“As year-over-year literacy gains pause, it’s a call to look deeper into the mechanics of student growth and understanding,” said Susan Lambert, chief academic officer at Amplify, in a June 30 statement.
For this analysis, Amplify used data from its mCLASS Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, or DIBELS tests. About 350,000 students across 1,800 schools in 43 states are represented in the data.
In addition to the use of multi-tiered systems of support, Amplify recommends schools support teachers in learning about science of reading approaches, as well as ensure students are receiving evidence-based grade-level instruction.
