New results from Idaho’s early literacy assessment, the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI), show steady gains made in reading proficiency among students in kindergarten through third grade. The data reflects improvement across all grade levels, with student growth observed in both fall-to-spring results and in spring-to-spring results.
Each spring and fall, Idaho students in kindergarten through third grade take the IRI as required by Idaho Code 33-1806. The assessment helps facilitate Idaho educators’ understanding of the needs of early learners in phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension.
“These results suggest that the investments being made statewide around literacy funding and training are paying off,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield. “This achievement should serve as an example of what’s possible when attention and resources are focused on an area of need, and I’d like to thank our educators directly for making a positive impact on our youngest learners’ futures in education and beyond.”
Highlights from the spring IRI data include:
- Statewide, proficiency rose from 66.5 percent in spring 2024 to 71 percent in spring 2025
- 11 percentage point increase from fall 2024 to spring 2025 in overall proficiency
- 13 percentage point increase for kindergarteners reading at grade level from 66 percent in spring 2024 to 79 percent in spring 2025
- Three percentage point increase in first grade students reading at grade level from spring 2024 to spring 2025
| Fall 2024 | Kindergarten | Grade 1 | Grade 2 | Grade 3 | All Grades |
| Below Grade Level | 23% | 21% | 21% | 19.4% | 21% |
| Near Grade Level | 24% | 20% | 18% | 17.2% | 19% |
| At Grade Level | 53% | 59% | 61% | 63.4% | 60% |
| # participated | 19,845 | 20,328 | 22,628 | 23,602 | 86,403 |
| Spring 2024 | Kindergarten | Grade 1 | Grade 2 | Grade 3 | All Grades |
| Below Grade Level | 16% | 18% | 18% | 15% | 16.7% |
| Near Grade Level | 18% | 18% | 16% | 15% | 16.8% |
| At Grade Level | 66% | 64% | 66% | 70% | 66.5% |
| # participated | 20,479 | 22,584 | 23,482 | 23,558 | 90,103 |
| Spring 2025 | Kindergarten | Grade 1 | Grade 2 | Grade 3 | All Grades | ||||||
| Below Grade Level | 10% | 15% | 17% | 15% | 14% | ||||||
| Near Grade Level | 11% | 18% | 15% | 15% | 15% | ||||||
| At Grade Level | 79% | 67% | 68% | 70% | 71% | ||||||
| # participated | 19,802
|
20,290
|
22,618
|
23,292
|
86,002
|
This assessment cycle is the first since the implementation of State Statute 33-1618, which allows districts to exempt students from participating in the IRI if they have been enrolled for less than two full school years in an elementary school in the United States and who score less than a level two on the state English language proficiency assessment. Of 2,652 eligible students, 1,727 were exempted from the IRI during this school year across multiple districts. The exempted students represented about 1.5 percent of all test-takers.
“This is the first year that our districts and charters have had the ability to exempt some English learner students from taking a test in a language in which they are not proficient,” said Critchfield. “Though the exclusion of this small group of students did have a slight impact on the comparability of this year’s data to last year’s, the improvements that our local education agencies have made are still strong and should be celebrated.”
An analysis made with the assumption that excluded test-takers would not achieve grade level results shows an approximate one percentage point decrease in the total number of students testing at and near grade level and a corresponding two percentage point increase in students testing below grade level.
“More and more Idaho students are leaving third grade prepared to take on the next phase of their education with essential reading skills,” said Critchfield. “As we continue to see statewide investment in educator training in the Science of Reading and phonics combined with flexible funding that has given districts and charters the freedom to focus on initiatives such as full-day kindergarten and afterschool reading programs, I believe that we’ll continue to see growth towards our overall goals for student literacy achievement.”
Complete spring 2025 IRI results are available to view on the Idaho Report Card at https://www.idahoreportcard.org/.
