What is NAEP? For more than 50 years, information on what American students know and can do has been generated by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It is the only ongoing effort to obtain comprehensive and dependable achievement data on a national basis in a uniform and scientific manner. Commonly known as “The Nation's Report Card", NAEP is a congressionally mandated project of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (https://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Assessment/Pages/NAEP.aspx).
The following information is derived from Reading Framework for the 2026 National Assessment of Educational Progress, U.S. Department of Education.
Chapter 2: The 2026 NAEP Reading Assessment - IMPORTANT FACTS
There are four key features involved in reading comprehension - contexts, readers, texts, and activities. Reading comprehension is making meaning with text.
*Contexts: Contexts are shaped by how individuals interact with one another in classrooms, families, communities, and many other social and cultural experiences. These contexts shape every aspect of reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is needed in every, single academic setting! I say this so many times to parents. My struggling readers… they will need help and struggle not only in Language Arts and Reading, but also in Math, Science, and Social Studies!
*Readers: Readers’ motivations and purposes are impacted by their previous experiences. They read to enjoy, to appreciate, to learn, or to gather information. They read by themselves and with others; silently or orally; and lightly for a general impression or closely to prepare for a debate. This is one of the MANY reasons why it is important to read to our kids at home… as soon as they are babies… start the habit of reading! Make reading FUN! These fun experiences impact their desire to read in the future!
*Texts: Texts are generated by authors to communicate to readers. They take on many forms: printed on paper, published in digital forms, images, videos, etc. Texts are composed according to conventions tied to cultural traditions and social practices. Texts also vary in terms of the people, points of view, and experiences that are or are not represented. In my teaching career and as a parent of a struggling reader, I offer a variety of texts to my students and to my son. We read novels and books in print. We also used computer-generated reading programs. At the school, I use Fast ForWord and Read Live with my students for digital content. In the regular education classroom, they get NewsELA and other programs where we can set the reader’s lexile level. At home, my son works on ABC Mouse and watches books read aloud on YouTube with highlighted print. There are so many options!
*Activities: This includes all the actions readers take as they comprehend text and communicate and apply their understanding after reading by reading the actual lines, reading “between the lines” - drawing inferences, and reading “beyond the lines” - using what they know to fill in the gaps. These activities are very, very important in learning to comprehend what students are reading. What happens next? What do you think will happen at the end of the story? Defining words they don’t know the meaning of by inference.
Updating the 2026 NAEP Reading Framework:
This one has been updated to reflect three research-based developments: 1) How students’ social and cultural experiences shape learning and development, including the learning and edevelopment of reading colmprehension; 2) How reading varies across disciplines; and 3) Regards the use of digital an dmultimodal texts.
Why is it important to include various disciplinary texts in a reading assessment? The importance of disciplinary reading in literature, science, and social studies to reflect the increased imkportance of disciplinary reading in schools, state standards, and large-scale reading comprehension assessments. It involves engaging in tasks that yield new understanding, enabler problem-solving common to such contexts, and focus on historical and contemporary social issues. Reading is the center of literary study and enjoyment. Themes of human experience are everywhere in literature! Nature and humanity. Struggle and survival. Love and friendship. Loss and betrayal. Victory and defeat. Mortality and meaningfulness. Literature so often allows us opportunities to connect with cultures and experiences similar to or different from one’s own. In relation to Science texts, learning about science in school involves the use of varied texts to describe, report, and report claims about the natural world - observation protocols, lab notes, experimental descriptions, journal articles, etc. Outside of schools, people often need science text knowledge to understand issues and solve problems. In relation to Social Studies texts, learning about social studies in school provides an intellectual context for studying how humans have inteaacted with each other and with the environment over time. People read a variety of texts to understand historical and contemporary issues and to solve community, national, and world problems.
PURPOSES! Purposes are a key component of the 2026 NAEP Reading Assessment. There are two: broad and specific. Broad covers reading to develop understanding and reading to solve a problem. Specific means reading a text and given a specific goal.
As initiated in 2017, the 2026 NAEP Reading Assessment will continue to be entirely based in a digital platform.
The purpose of the 2026 NAEP Reading Assessment is to measure students’ reading comprehension across a diverse range of test-takers. It also employs principles of Universal Design of Assessments (UDA). Universal Design Elements (UDEs) are design elements of the assessment environment intended to help all test takers access, organize, analyze, and express ideas when engaging in complex tasks, such as reading comprehension. NAEP collects data to gain insight into contextual variables via questionnaires that are completed by students and school personnel.
Why should we look at multiple pieces of information before diagnosing a reading problem? There are multiple components to reading disorders. So many different disorders, learning disabilities, syndromes, medical issues, non-medical issues, etc., that look similar. The best thing we can do for our kids is to look at multiple pieces of information before offering a “diagnosis” or reason for the reading problem! Get second, third, fourth opinions! Get a medical professional involved if necessary! Talk to the school’s psychiatrist, nurse, teachers!
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