Ohio students’ reading scores rose slightly last school year, the first the science of reading was mandated, but it’s too soon to say whether the phonics-based lessons are making a difference.
About 63 percent of Ohio third graders — the grade educators have long considered the most crucial for mastering reading — scored as proficient on spring 2026 state tests, up two percentage points from 61 percent in 2025.
Statewide reading proficiency also rose for all grades combined, as did proficiency for groups of students who often struggle.
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That increase is cause for optimism for science of reading supporters, who cheered the progress as the state released spring 2026 test results this week. But the evidence isn’t clear yet that Ohio’s adoption of the science of reading in 2023 has students on a consistent path upward.
Third grade proficiency is still below pre-pandemic levels. It’s also below the 65 percent proficiency third graders had just two years ago in 2024 when the science of reading was being phased in. This year’s 63 percent proficiency is right in the middle of the 2024 and 2025 results.
Large changes in test scores could take a few years to show up, reading experts nationally have told The 74 since the science of reading has caught on in most states, particularly with schools needing to replace books, help teachers learn new ways to teach and then have the lessons start helping students.
Other factors could be holding scores back, including teachers not embracing the science of reading fully and still using old methods as well as Ohio’s decision to drop its hotly-contested requirement that students score well in reading to advance to fourth grade.
“It’s too early to tell in my view,” said Aaron Churchhill, Ohio research director of the Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education advocacy group that backs the science of reading. “We need to keep at it and give it a few years.”
Ohio Excels, a partnership of Ohio’s chambers of commerce, called the reading gains “encouraging” and said they suggest the science of reading is starting to take hold.
“At the same time, proficiency rates remain much too low, with nearly four in 10 students not proficient in reading,” said Ohio Excels President Lisa Gray. “We cannot be satisfied when so many students are still falling short of the skills they need to succeed.”
Ohio’s adoption of the science of reading in 2023 is a source of pride for two-term Gov. Mike DeWine, who leaves office at the end of this year. That year, Ohio became one of the earliest states to ban “cueing” — having young students figure out what a word is through context or pictures — in favor of more direct, phonics-based instruction.
The state also required all teachers to take online training in the science of reading; and for all schools to use only state-approved science of reading textbooks, workbooks and online lessons.
Though many schools had already started using science of reading methods before the law and many made the shift quickly, others moved more slowly. The 2025-26 year was the first all schools had to use it.
After third grade reading scores dropped in 2024-25, state officials and science of reading backers said last fall that spring 2026 test scores would be “pivotal.”
Backers of the change to the science of reading had several points to crow about in test results released this week. In addition to the third grade proficiency increase, the reading proficiency rate for all grades combined rose nearly two percentage points as well, to 62 percent.
And every demographic group the state measures — such as racial groups, disabled students and low-income students — also had improved reading proficiency from last year. Leading the way were Hispanic and Black students with gains of 3.5 and 3.4 percentage points and economically-disadvantaged students with a 2.7 percent gain.
“When you look at this year’s state report cards and see what has been done in a relatively short amount of time, it is a tremendous accomplishment,” DeWine said in a press release announcing the scores.
Schools that were early adopters of the science of reading also suggest that persistence in using the science of reading, and other training and ongoing coaching of teachers, can bring results.
The Elyria school district 30 miles west of Cleveland had stagnant reading results and even a decline in 2025 scores, despite receiving an award from DeWine for its science of reading efforts. But district leaders and teachers told The 74 last fall they were poised for gains in 2026.
They were right: Third grade reading proficiency in that district’s five elementary schools jumped from about 45% in 2025 to about 52% in 2026.
The district was delighted with the gains, but also cautioned keeping them going will take constant work.
“We have talked about things taking time and just what a long term process it is to implement anything, and lots of different factors we have, whether it’s staff turnover or different knowledge levels of our teachers and things like that,” said Courtney Griffiths, associate superintendent of academic services. “Yes, it’s very nice to see those results. It doesn’t mean that we back off on anything that we’re doing or we feel like it’s mission accomplished.”
Literacy specialist Andrea McKenzie said early diagnostic tests of those third graders as they started as fourth graders this school year show the improvements are persisting.
“I think it’s real,” McKenzie said. “We’re not seeing a setback… It’s really sticking in fourth grade right now too.”
There are still reasons to be unsure if the science of reading shift is bringing sustainable results, along with the third grade proficiency rate still lagging behind 2024. Multiple reasons could account for gains, including drops in chronic absenteeism over time and students having had more time to catch up from missing school because of the pandemic.
And the science of reading isn’t achieving one of its most important goals — helping the worst students read better by giving them more explicit directions on the sounds letters make and how to decode words into something they can understand.
More third graders are scoring as “limited,” the state’s lowest rating, an equivalent to an F, than before the state passed the science of reading — 21% this year, compared to 20.9% in 2025 and 19.1% in 2023.
The inability to help the students that read the worst bothers Fordham, which wants Ohio to bring back the “Third Grade Reading Guarantee” the legislature passed in 2012 requiring mandatory retention of third graders who can’t score well in reading.
Churchill said that the percentage of students scoring as limited had dropped under that law in the years before the pandemic — falling from 27% in 2016 to 14% in 2019.
“(It) pushed schools to help struggling readers —now it’s gone,” Churchill said. “The science of reading holds great promise for students, but it needs to be paired with the accountability that a retention mandate brings.”