Indiana third grade reading scores surpass pre-pandemic levels on IREAD test

Indiana IREAD scores reached 88.7% proficiency among third graders this year, the fifth straight annual increase and the first time the state has climbed past its 2019 rate of 87.3%. That makes Indiana one of the few states able to say its youngest readers have recovered what the pandemic took, and then some.

The number is the headline. The sequence that produced it is the part other states should be reading.

What Indiana actually did

Starting in 2022, the state stacked policy changes on top of each other instead of rotating through them:

• Over $100 million for phonics-based reading instruction, funded largely by the Lilly Endowment.
• The Indiana Literacy Cadre, which places instructional coaches inside schools. It launched with 41 schools and now reaches 770. What began as opt-in is now required for schools that have scored below a 75% pass rate three years running.
• Indiana Learns, a grant program letting qualifying families buy English and math tutoring from approved providers.
• A 2023 curriculum mandate requiring districts to adopt materials aligned with the science of reading.
• A 2024 licensure law requiring elementary and special education teachers in literacy-adjacent content areas to earn a literacy endorsement, including a Praxis exam.

In 2025, the Indiana Department of Education partnered with The Mind Trust to take its Indy Summer Learning Labs — a summer academic enrichment program built in Indianapolis — and replicate it at schools across the state, free or low-cost to families. A locally built program became state infrastructure. That path from one city's experiment to statewide practice is rarer than it should be, and it's worth naming when it happens.

Who gained

Gains showed up across nearly every racial and ethnic group, and for students with disabilities, English learners, and students eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

Black students moved from 76.1% proficiency in 2025 to above 80% in 2026 — an 18-percentage-point climb from the 2021 pandemic low of 62%, and comfortably above the 2019 rate of 74.2%. Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner noted the figure sits within a percentage point of the highest rate for Black students in state history.

Hispanic students gained nearly eight percentage points, reaching 76.1%, though that still trails the 78.1% they posted in 2019. Students receiving free or reduced-price meals reached 84.1%, up from 82.6%.

Second graders, who now all sit for the exam, jumped from 48% to 62%.

Why this matters

At Parkside Elementary in Columbus, where the pass rate hit 96.1%, Principal Chris Smith described a student who had scored the lowest possible result as a second grader. A year of direct, explicit, systematic instruction later, she passed.

"Now she loves to read graphic novels for fun, and feels capable as a student in all subject areas," Smith said. He quoted her: "It just feels good to be able to read."

That is what a five-year policy sequence buys. Not a dashboard — a nine-year-old who picks up a book on purpose.

Indiana didn't find a trick. It committed money, changed what teachers are trained to do, changed what districts are allowed to buy, put coaches in buildings, and held the line across multiple budget cycles and legislative sessions. Then it let a program that worked in one city scale to the rest of the state. That's slow, unglamorous, and almost entirely replicable, which is exactly why every state with flat reading scores should be reading Indiana's paperwork.

City Fund supports The Mind Trust, whose Indy Summer Learning Labs now operate statewide through a partnership with the Indiana Department of Education.