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Utah Students Face Reading Proficiency Challenges Perigon

Leo Migdal
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utah students face reading proficiency challenges perigon

Christine is the co-founder of the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation. She is the mother of five children and grandmother to seven children. Reading is no longer intuitive. We reach for phones instead of books. Less than half of Utah’s third grade students (48%) are reading on grade level, an astounding fact published by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

One out of two children in the state of Utah cannot read proficiently. For the past five years, that percentage has basically remained steady. Out of Utah’s 852 public schools this year, the Utah State Board of Education celebrated 60 schools that have achieved a reading rate of 70%. While this is a positive trend, all of our schools should at the very least hit this minimum requirement. This quiet reading crisis in our state and across the nation will eventually explode into unskilled workers faced with limited possibilities. National data shows that only 31% of students are reading at or above grade level.

An illiterate population will cost our state and our nation financially and fundamentally. Life will change for all of us if more than half our citizens can no longer read. A literate workforce has long been the propelling force of America’s middle class. Our democracy relies on literate people who can think and reason for themselves. Impending AI and illiteracy is a combination that will be difficult to weather. Utah remains one of the most literate states in the country, with an average of 9% illiterate compared to the national average of 14.7%.

Literacy rates often reflect the quality of a state’s education system, which can have a notable impact on long-term success. However, there are nuances to the ways the scores are presented. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) is a standardized assessment for fourth and eighth-graders that tests reading ability. Katherine O’Donnell, an assistant professor in the Educational Psychology department’s Literacy, Language and Learning program, explained the potential flaws in NAEP’s data. “Utah tends to score higher in the U.S., which is great, but the struggle is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are hitting really high benchmarks,” O’Donnell said. “So it’s not like we’re having 75% of our students reading at proficient or above [standard levels]; it just means that we are doing better than other states.”

Less than half of Utah children in grades 1-3 were reading at the expected grade level during the 2022-2023 school year. According to NAEP, the average score in the eighth grade had lowered by four points between 2022 and 2024. Additionally, 36% of Utah’s fourth graders are reading at or above the proficient level. Utah has set a high bar for reading proficiency. It wants 70% of third grade students reading at grade level by 2027. But there’s still a big gap to close.

As of the 2023-2024 school year, only 48.1% of third-graders met that mark, according to Utah State Board of Education Literacy and Early Learning Coordinator Julie Clark. That’s about the same as it was the year before. “Our first graders moved a little bit. Our second and our third graders stayed very stagnant; it was about exactly the same as where we were the year before. We've kind of hit a plateau,” Clark said. “Obviously I would love to see it jump more, but at the same time, we do know that change takes time,” Clark said.

The Legislature set the 70% goal in 2022. The state spent millions to train teachers on the science of reading, invest in literacy coaches and make sure districts were using high-quality instructional materials. (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kindergarten teacher Kaitlin Roundy preps her room at Glacier Hills Elementary in Sandy on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. Proficiency progress for Utah's K-12 students has flatlined, a new state audit found. Across all subjects and grade levels, Utah students are not improving, state auditors warned in a new report.

They’re not getting worse, either — at least not at the state level, the new audit found. But overall gains have flatlined as schools struggle to move students from “not proficient” into the “proficient” category on statewide assessments, according to the report from the Legislative Auditor General. Proficiency levels have largely been stagnant for the last five years, according to auditors, who analyzed “proficiency movement” — the percentage of students who moved from “below proficient” to “proficient” and vice versa —... (Data for the 2019-20 school year was omitted because of COVID-19 disruptions.) They found that students performing below grade level rarely achieved proficiency. ST.

GEORGE, Utah — When looking at the statewide audit for how Utah students are underperforming, one glaring gap is the reading ability of third graders. A KUER report showed that only 48.1% of the students in the third grade are able to meet reading standards for their grade level. "The state has this intense goal of getting students, 70% of third-grade students, reading grade level by 2027," said KUER reporter Martha Harris. The numbers show a lot of work needs to be done to make that happen. Education officials told Harris that they’re looking at solutions, with the biggest being to make sure there is a unified plan to attack the problem. "I heard a lot of people talk about making sure that administrators are supporting teachers and working with them and holding them accountable," Harris shared.

"I think that's a big thing that people say is missing right now in trying to reach that goal." Sen. Ann Millner: Building an Education Foundation for Utah Students One of the reasons I love being a professor is that I get a front row seat to students’ successes in and out of the classroom. I’ve watched students become contributing members of society and leaders in our community. I get to admire and observe how their creativity and contributions make Utah a better place to live.

However, not all students are lucky enough to pursue such opportunities because they lack foundational skills developed early on in their education. One of those foundational skills is reading. Reading is essential to ensuring every child has the opportunity to succeed. It promotes self-confidence, builds independence and boosts critical and creative thinking skills. As we head into a new school year, the Utah Legislature has taken steps to help students develop better reading abilities. Right now, 50% of students in Utah are not at grade-level reading by the third grade.

Consequently, students who are unable to read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma. Not to mention, third grade literacy levels are a strong indicator of a student’s academic success or failure throughout the student’s education experience. Dec 10, 2024, 8:00 PM | Updated: Jan 30, 2025, 9:27 am Third grade teacher Nereida Lopez talks to one of her students before The Great Utah ShakeOut earthquake drill at Heartland Elementary School in West Jordan on Thursday, April 18, 2024. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News) SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s third grade students are falling behind on their reading skills.

But the Utah Legislature has set a goal to reach a higher standard. The state legislature set a mandate in 2022 to raise the reading proficiency up to 70%. Third grade teachers have until 2027 to improve the reading proficiency of their students. Reading assessments are taken 3 times a year. The latest assessment shows third grade reading proficiency is at 48%.

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