Just under 76% of Mississippi’s third graders passed the initial state reading assessment during the 2025-26 school year.
The Mississippi Department of Education reported Thursday that 75.6%, or 24,118, of third-grade pupils cleared the initial administration of the reading test. A total of 31,887 students took the test. The figure marked a near 2% decline in the number of students who passed.
In 2024-25, 77.3% of third graders passed the initial administration of the assessment, with 84.6% of students passing after final retests. In 2023-24, 75.7% of students passed the initial administration, with 84% passing after final retests.
In accordance with the Literacy-Based Promotion Act, third graders who do not pass the initial administration of the reading test are given up to two attempts to retest. Students who did not pass the initial reading assessment took retests from May 11-15. The second retest window is June 22-26.
State lawmakers passed the literacy-based promotion legislation in 2013 to improve reading skills of kindergarten through third-grade students in public schools, so that every pupil enters fourth grade at an adequate reading level.
The law requires Mississippi third graders to pass a reading assessment to qualify for promotion to fourth grade. Some students may qualify for good cause exemptions to be promoted to the next K-12 level.
A list of how school districts and individual educational centers fared in the updated reading assessment scores can be found here. Final district-level pass rates will be published this fall in the Literacy-Based Promotion Act Annual Report of Performance and Student Retention for the 2025-26 school year.
