Analysis of State K-3 Reading 

Standards and Assessments 

Executive Summary 

By 

E. Allen Schenck 

Douglas R. Walker 

Carrie R. Nagel 

RMC Research Corporation 

Arlington, Va. 

Loretta C. Webb 

The McKenzie Group 

Washington, D.C. 

Prepared for: 

U.S. Department of Education 

Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development 

Policy and Program Studies Service 

2005
This report was prepared for the U.S. Department of Education under Contract No. ED-01-CO-0055/0011, 

Task 7. The project monitor was Beth A. Franklin in the Policy and Program Studies Service. The views 

expressed herein are those of the contractor. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education 

is intended or should be inferred. 

U.S. Department of Education 

Margaret Spellings 

Secretary

Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development 

Tom Luce 

Assistant Secretary

Policy and Program Studies Service 

Alan L. Ginsburg 

Director

Program and Analytic Studies Division 

David Goodwin 

Director 

October 2005 

This report is in the public domain, except for the photographs on the front and back covers, which are used 

with permission and copyright, 2005, Getty Images. Authorization to produce it in whole or in part is 

granted. Although permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be: U.S. 

Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program 

Studies Service, Analysis of State K-3 Reading Standards and Assessments: Executive Summary, 

Washington, D.C., 2005. 

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Background and Methodology 

The National Reading Panel (NRP) issued a report in 2000 that responded to a 

congressional mandate to help parents, teachers, and policymakers identify key skills and 

instructional methods central to reading achievement. The panel identified five areas that 

they found to be critical to effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, 

fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension (see Appendix A in the complete final 

report for a description of these areas). 

Using these findings as a foundation, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001

established the Reading First program under Title I, Part B, Subpart 1 of the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to ensure that all children in America are reading at 

or above grade level by the end of third grade. This initiative is designed to achieve this 

goal through the establishment of high quality reading instruction in kindergarten through 

grade 3 that includes the five essential components identified in the research. Congress 

also recognized that state academic content standards and assessments play an important 

role in supporting instruction in the classroom. Section 1205 of ESEA calls for an 

evaluation of whether state standards correlate with and assessments measure these 

essential components of reading instruction. 

This report addresses the relationship between state content standards and assessments 

and the essential components of effective reading instruction. The extent to which the 

essential components are addressed in the standards and assessments indicates the extent 

to which states have integrated the essential components into their reading curriculum. 

This report describes reviews of state assessments and standards, the purpose of which 

was twofold: 

• to evaluate the degree to which state reading content standards for K-3 students 

reflected expectations for learning in these five essential areas of effective reading 

instruction; and 

• to determine the extent to which state assessments administered in the K-3 grade 

span played a role in the measurement of Reading First outcomes in the five 

areas. 

The methods used to address these two purposes differed in both emphasis and approach. 

This study conducted an expert review in January 2004 of state reading content standards 

for grades K-3 from a random sample of 20 states. Five consultants with expertise in 

reading instruction, scientifically based reading research, staff development in reading, 

and familiarly with state content standards reviewed the standards from the 20 selected 

states. Teams of two reviewers determined how many of each state’s standards represent 

the five areas of reading instruction and the degree to which this representation is clear, is 

appropriate for the intended grade level, provides complete coverage of each area, and 

provides an appropriate level of detail to guide instruction. 

The analysis of state assessments was made simpler by existing data. State Reading First 

applications included information on which states were using their existing statewide 

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assessments to measure the five essential components of effective reading instruction. 

Project staff conducted a systematic review of approved Reading First applications for all 

states and the District of Columbia to determine which states’ 2003-04 K-3 statewide 

assessments were identified as measures of the five essential areas of reading instruction. 

Key Findings 

Comprehension and, to a lesser extent, vocabulary are better represented 

by sampled states K-3 reading standards than are the other three essential 

elements of reading instruction. 

• Reading comprehension is the most represented of the essential elements in state 

K-3 reading content standards with an average of 57 standards per state, followed 

by vocabulary (19), phonics (16), fluency (6), and phonemic awareness (6). 

• Most standards representing each essential element were judged to be placed at 

the appropriate grade by most of the states. A few states were found to have 

placed standards representing phonemic awareness and phonics at too high of a 

grade level. 

• Most states have standards that adequately cover comprehension and phonics, 

while just over half of the states provide adequate coverage for vocabulary, 

phonemic awareness, and fluency. Comprehension standards were judged to 

cover most or all of the appropriate content in 90 percent of the states, followed 

by phonics (80 percent), vocabulary (60 percent), phonemic awareness (60 

percent), and fluency (55 percent). 

 

• Most states (75 percent) provide an appropriate level of detail for comprehension 

standards, followed by vocabulary (70 percent), phonics (60 percent), phonemic 

awareness (50 percent), and fluency (35 percent). In most cases, when standards 

were judged as not having an appropriate level of detail, it was because they were 

too broad. 

• All of the 20 sampled states make comprehension clearly visible in their 

organization of reading standards. Almost all (18) make some of the other 

elements visible. Half make all five elements visible and they tend to do so at 

relatively high levels within their organizational hierarchy. 

States with larger numbers of K-3 reading standards organized to make the 

five essential elements more visible were judged to represent these 

elements better. 

• For each of the essential elements, states with larger numbers of standards have 

standards that provide better coverage, are more likely to be at an appropriate 

grade level, and are written more often at an appropriate level of detail. 

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• Both the number and quality of reading standards—within and across the five 

elements—were directly related to the degree of element visibility within the 

organization within the reading standards. 

With the possible exception of vocabulary and comprehension in grade 3, 

statewide reading assessments in 2003-04 do not significantly address 

expected student outcomes from reading instruction in the five essential 

areas. 

• Thirty states administer statewide reading assessments in grade 3, and very few 

do so at grades below 3. 

• Twenty of these states identify their grade 3 statewide reading assessments as 

measures of Reading First outcomes, primarily for just vocabulary and 

comprehension. 

• None of the states identify their statewide reading assessments as outcome 

measures in the area of fluency, presumably because it requires individual 

assessment of children. 

There is a slight relationship between how state standards and 

assessments represent the five essential elements of reading instruction. 

• States that identified their statewide reading assessments as Reading First 

outcome measures tended to have more reading standards that visibly represented 

the five essential elements of effective reading instruction. 

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