Maryland READS, a literacy-focused nonprofit, is calling for more local and state action to improve reading scores following a decrease in proficiency rates for eighth-grade students and a slight increase in rates for fourth-graders from the 2022-2023 school year to the 2023-2024 school year.
Maryland READS released its State of Reading in Maryland 2025 report on Tuesday, which explores national, state and local reading proficiency data, focusing on fourth and eighth-grade scores.
“Maryland faces significant challenges right now. Our state is dealing with a budget crisis, including unexpected federal education cuts,” Trish Brennan-Gac, executive director of Maryland READS, said in a statement. “Equally concerning, our report shows far too many students are not able to read proficiently – we are still facing a reading crisis. However, there’s reason for hope: state and local leaders have prioritized reading and laid the foundation for improvement.”
State, local trends
According to the report, while education spending has increased in Maryland from 2022 to 2024, fourth grade reading scores have only recently begun to increase after students experienced decreases in proficiency following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data Maryland READS cited from The Nation’s Report Card produced by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Eighth-grade reading scores declined slightly from 2022 to 2024 but saw a slower decline in literacy than in previous years.
Studies show that students who can read well by the end of fourth grade are more likely to finish high school on time and go to college or get a job, according to the report. And students begin to read more difficult texts as they enter middle and high school, and without good reading skills, can have trouble understanding their work.
Reading proficiency scores on the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) for the state’s fourth graders increased slightly from the 2022-2023 school year to the 2023-2024 school year, according to data from the Maryland State Department of Education.
While Maryland as a whole saw increases in fourth-grade scores, MCAP scores for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) fourth graders showed a decrease from 57.6% achieving proficiency in the 2022-2023 school year to 55.9% in the 2023-2024 school year, Maryland READS reported. And the district only made marginal increases across data for all students. Eighth graders stagnated at 52.7% for both the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years.
The MCAP is a test that measures the mastery of state content standards, according to the Maryland State Department of Education. The assessment is administered once a year to students in grades three through eight and once in a high schooler’s career for English Language Arts/Literacy (ELA) and math.
In Montgomery County, 55.3% of all MCPS students demonstrated proficiency during the 2023-2024 school year on the English Language Arts test – an increase of 0.9 percentage points over the previous school year’s score, according to state data.
In September when MCAP scores were released, former Montgomery County school board President Karla Silvestre told Bethesda Today that “everybody wants to see greater gains each year, but overall, we’re trending in the right direction.”
The district has focused on improving literacy through teacher training and the implementation of a new English/Language Arts curriculum. In January, district staff told the school board that students are making progress in meeting literacy benchmarks.
Improving proficiency moving forward
The Maryland READS report pointed to teacher-preparation programs, student attendance and overuse of screen time as factors impacting reading proficiency.
A 2024 report from the National Center on Teacher Quality found that Maryland had overall rating of “moderate” for teacher-preparation programs, but received a rating of “weak” on a metric that measured how well the state was ensuring the programs teach the science of reading – an approach to teaching reading based on decades of research, Maryland READS notes in its report.
Maryland READS report also noted that chronic absenteeism – when students miss 18 or more days in a school year, or 10% of the academic calendar – contributes to worse educational outcomes, and argues that students “scrolling, skimming, and zigzagging on screens” can diminish “the brain’s capacity for immersive reading.”
MCPS ranked toward the middle among chronic absentee rates – with a roughly a 23% chronic absentee rate – when compared to other cities and counties in Maryland in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the report. That is a 3% decrease from the 2022-2023 school year, which saw a 26% chronic absenteeism rates, according to the district.
Moving forward, the report offered several statewide recommendations, including aligning teacher-preparation programs to the science of reading and allocating funding for the state education department’s teacher coaching model. The report also made recommendations for local districts and communities to contribute to literacy improvement.
The recommendations include holding parent education programs to educate about the negative impacts of screen time, focusing on improving scores in community schools and creating READ Strong Networks with the help of Maryland READS to bring communities together to focus on improving literacy.
