The state aims to see 70% of its third graders reading at grade level by 2027. So far, only about half are hitting the mark.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Raychel Rondash teaches English at Mount Logan Middle School in Logan, on Monday, August 25, 2025. About half of Utah’s third-graders aren’t reading on grade level, according to a new report published Monday, Jan. 5, 2026.
About half of Utah’s third-graders are not reading at grade level, according to a new report from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
Neither are nearly half of Utah’s kindergarteners through second graders, the study found.
The analysis, commissioned by the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation, comes about two weeks before the start of Utah’s next legislative session and “underscores the urgent need for coordinated early literacy initiatives,” a news release on the report states.
Third grade marks a crucial moment in a child’s academic career and future success, the report notes. That’s because after third grade, reading becomes the primary way students are expected to absorb information across all subjects.
Those who have not mastered it risk falling behind. And the report notes many Utah students who are not proficient readers are moving on to the next grade.
“Children shape Utah’s future, and their ability to read proficiently by the end of third grade plays a central role in the opportunities they have,” the report states.
Digging into the data
Reading proficiency rates vary across school districts and student groups, the report found.
In Park City School District, for instance, 70% of third graders can read proficiently. In rural Piute County School District, less than 30% can.
In fact, Park City is the only district meeting the state’s statutory goal of 70% reading proficiency among third graders. Lawmakers set that objective in 2022 through SB127 and aim to reach it statewide by 2027.
The report noted significant literacy gains in early grades. Kindergarten reading proficiency, for instance, increased from 37.7% in 2021 to 53.3% in 2025.
Still, achievement gaps remain wide. Just 35.2% of economically disadvantaged third graders are meeting reading expectations, for example, compared with 50.3% of their peers.
High-poverty schools tend to correlate with lower proficiency rates, but not always, said Andrea Thomas Brandley, a senior education analyst at the Gardner Policy Institute and the report’s lead author.
“It’s not a question of inherent student ability,” she said. “It’s a question of making sure we’re doing the right things and have the right resources where they need to be.”
A need for ‘intensive’ interventions
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Gov. Spencer Cox laughs as first lady Abby Cox reads to children following a news conference on his budget proposal for fiscal 2027 at Kearns Library on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025.
Utah has taken several steps to address early childhood literacy, but the report notes more targeted, “intensive” interventions may be necessary.
The report cites Mississippi as a potential model, noting that the state’s comprehensive approach, rather than a “single policy change,” helped propel it from 49th to ninth place nationally for fourth grade reading over the course of about a decade.
As part of that effort, Mississippi “aligned curriculum” statewide and “implemented third-grade retention” policies, the report states.
Improving third-grade literacy was a pillar of Gov. Spencer Cox’s roughly $30.7 billion budget proposal for the next fiscal year.
He unveiled it last month at the Salt Lake County library in Kearns, a location meant to emphasize the proposal’s commitment to literacy, he said.
As part of his proposal, Cox called for a $500,000 for a public literacy awareness campaign, which he said would include advertising and billboards.
It’s one slice of the $654 million he would like to see go toward education, including $60 million for “targeted behavioral interventions” in kindergarten through third grade; $20 million for reading support in elementary schools with fewer than 70% of students reading at grade level; and more than $53 million for school safety improvements.
“I realized that this was incredibly important and that we needed to focus on literacy this coming year,” Cox said last month.
Cox supports third grade retention
Cox has also floated the idea of implementing a third grade retention policy in Utah.
“It’s hard,” the governor said during a December meeting with The Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial board. “People don’t love that. But in Mississippi, if you’re not reading on third grade level at the end of third grade, you stay in third grade.”
Retention, he added, is a “strong motivator” for parents, students and teachers.
“What Mississippi has proven is that literacy, illiteracy, is a policy choice.” Cox said.
In 2021, Utah set aside $11.9 million of its federal COVID-19 relief funds to roll out “Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling” (LETRS) training statewide. The investment was part of more than $1 billion the state received.
LETRS is designed to strengthen educators’ literacy instruction by grounding teaching practices in research on reading, spelling and language acquisition.
It was enough to support training for roughly 8,000 educators, impacting an estimated 155,000 students, state documents show.
The federal funds expired in September 2023, but lawmakers in 2022 preemptively allocated $18.5 million through SB127 to keep LETRS going (with a mix of one-time and ongoing funding), along with other literacy initiatives.