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Average reading scale scores, grades 4 and 8: 1992–2003

* Significantly different from 2003.
NOTE: Data were not collected at grade 8 in 2000. In addition to allowing for accommodations, the accommodations-permitted results at grade 4 (1998–2003) differ slightly from previous years' results, and from previously reported results for 1998 and 2000, due to changes in sample weighting procedures.
Significance tests were performed using unrounded numbers. NAEP sample sizes have increased since 2002 compared to previous years, resulting in smaller detectable differences than in previous assessments.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2003 Reading Assessments.   

Major Findings

• The average score of fourth-graders in 2003 was not found to differ significantly from that in either 1992 or 2002.
• The average reading score for eighth-graders decreased by one point between 2002 and 2003; the score in 2003 was higher than that in 1992.

See national achievement-level results for grade 4 and grade 8.

See information about the percentages of students excluded and assessed:

• accommodations not permitted (national); and
• accommodations permitted (national).

Explore national scale-score results by percentiles for grade 4 and grade 8.

Return to main results.

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Last updated 11 November 2003 (JBJ)