Indiana Reading Rates Hit 88.7% in Fifth Year of Growth

INDIANAPOLIS — Third-grade literacy in Indiana has officially surpassed pre-pandemic levels, fueled by a fifth consecutive year of academic gains on the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination (IREAD) assessment.

Data presented during the Tuesday, August 11, 2026, meeting of the Indiana State Board of Education showed that 88.7% of third-grade students statewide demonstrated proficient reading skills during the 2025–2026 school year. The figure represents an improvement of nearly 1.5 percentage points over the previous year—marking the second-largest single-year increase since IREAD testing began—and caps off a 7.5 percentage point climb since 2021.

Opening the August 11 board meeting as educators and students across Indiana launched a new academic year, Indiana Secretary of Education Dr. Katie Jenner framed the moment as a celebration of dedicated educators and communities.

“Serving in our schools is serving a cause much bigger than yourself,” Dr. Jenner told board members and attendees. “Serving not only your local community in our state, but most importantly, our number one asset, which is our young children.”

Directing her remarks to news media and education stakeholders gathered for the board’s public data presentation, Dr. Jenner emphasized the state’s momentum: “We have good news to share. And I think anything that you can do to help us celebrate the good news with reading, that is why Indiana is moving.”

Prior to 2021, Indiana literacy rates experienced annual declines in all but one year, reaching historical lows during the COVID-19 pandemic. State officials attribute the continuous turnaround to targeted investments in early literacy, educator coaching, and evidence-based strategies grounded in the science of reading.

“Our reading scores haven’t just recovered from the pandemic—they’ve surged,” Governor Mike Braun said in a statement. “Five consecutive years of literacy gains show what’s possible when we stay focused on getting every Hoosier child on the path to success. We’ve surpassed where we were before the pandemic, and we’re not stopping here.”

In official statements released alongside the data, Dr. Jenner noted that state education officials are turning their focus to sub-populations of learners who need extended literacy intervention.

“After historic gains last year, seeing these results increase again for the fifth consecutive year is truly remarkable,” Dr. Jenner stated. “As more students master reading by the end of third grade, we’re thinking very intentionally about how we deploy supports—that means understanding what works and focusing those proven strategies on the students who need them most, including students in special education and adolescent learners who are still working to master reading… In Indiana, our foot will remain on the gas pedal when it comes to continuously improving for students.”

The 2026 assessment data revealed performance gains across every demographic group from 2025 to 2026, pushing all student populations past their pre-pandemic baseline levels:

Black Students: Achieved a 4 percentage point increase over 2025 (an 18.1 percentage point leap since 2021). At 80.1% proficiency, Black students are now within one percentage point of their highest reading levels on record.

Hispanic Students: Gained 3.7 percentage points year-over-year (up 11.2 percentage points since 2021).

English Learners: Recorded gains for the second consecutive year, jumping nearly 11 percentage points over two years after remaining relatively flat for three years.

Students Receiving Free/Reduced Price Meals: Improved by 1.5 percentage points year-over-year (an 11.5 percentage point increase since 2021).

Students in Special Education: Increased by 2.3 percentage points from 2025 (up 14.5 percentage points since 2021).

Additionally, 511 elementary schools—representing 40% of all elementary schools in the state—reached the state’s goal of 95% reading proficiency. The number of schools reaching the 95% target has more than doubled since 2023.

Early Indicators and Strategic Interventions Drive Success
State education officials highlighted two primary catalysts for the continuous gains: early second-grade screening and instructional coaching cadres.

For the second year, all Indiana second graders took the IREAD assessment, offering parents and teachers an early progress metric before third grade. In 2026, 69% of second-grade students passed or were registered as “On-Track” to pass by the end of third grade—a sharp increase over 2025. Data indicates the indicator is highly predictive: over 95% of students labeled “On-Track” in second grade passed in 2026, while 61% of second graders marked “At-Risk” in 2025 went on to pass the assessment in third grade this year.

On the instructional side, the Indiana Literacy Cadre—a partnership between the state, the University of Indianapolis’s Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL), and Marian University’s Center for Vibrant Schools—has provided embedded science-of-reading instructional coaching to early elementary teachers in roughly 770 schools. Participating schools saw a 2.3 percentage point increase in students passing IREAD this year—nearly four times the growth rate of non-participating schools.

The cadre represents one component of an ongoing $240 million joint investment in early literacy between the State of Indiana and Lilly Endowment Inc., launched in August 2022.

Alongside IREAD data, the Department of Education released statewide results for the 2026 Indiana Learning Evaluation and Assessment Readiness Network (ILEARN) assessment, taken by students in grades three through eight.

In 2026, 42.0% of students tested proficient in English/Language Arts, while 42.7% demonstrated proficiency in Mathematics.

State officials cautioned that 2026 ILEARN scores cannot be compared to prior years due to state legislative mandates that overhauled the assessment system:

HEA 1251 (2022): Directed the Indiana Department of Education to streamline and prioritize K-12 academic core standards.

HEA 1243 (2024): Redesigned ILEARN from a single summative end-of-year test into a through-year assessment model featuring three flexible checkpoints during the school year and a shortened final test.

The 2025–2026 school year marked the first full implementation of the through-year model and newly established cut scores approved by the Indiana State Board of Education. Consequently, 2026 serves as a brand-new baseline for student performance metrics across Indiana. School- and district-level breakdown data for ILEARN will be published in September.