Reading Scores of Elementary Pupils in Stall

American schoolchildren at ages 9, 13 and 17 are all reading better than they were in 1971, but the progress in the elementary grades appears to have stalled, a government-funded testing agency reported today.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress also said that despite sizable gains for minority students, they lag far behind the white majority, with the average 17-year-old black or Latino student reading only slightly better than the average white 13-year-old.

“Though great improvements have been made, there is clearly still a long way to go,” the report said.

Secretary of Education William J. Bennett joined testing officials and teacher union leaders today at a news conference to unveil “The Reading Report Card.”

‘Nation of Readers’ Goal

Bennett told the news conference, “We are on our way to becoming a nation of readers, but we are not there yet.”

Nine- and 13-year-olds did not show improvements between 1980 and 1984, halting an upward trend in performance at those ages during the 1970s, the report said.

“Sixty-one percent of our 17-year-old students are still unable to read well enough to learn what they should from a high school text book,” Bennett said. “Four out of 10 13-year-olds do not have the reading ability to handle much of what is studied in a 6th- or 7th-grade class.”

He lamented that only 5% of the older students displayed advanced reading proficiency and said that the minority scores are “a grave national problem.”

Bennett said schools must “prepare the intellectual leaders of the next generation: the scholars and teachers, the scientists and engineers, the journalists and writers. One in 20 is too thin a layer to meet the nation’s needs.”

This was the fourth national assessment in reading since 1971. A quarter-million students took the standardized reading tests in those years, including 70,177 during 1983-84.

Children who watched six or more hours of television daily generally scored poorly, but students who watched up to two hours daily scored above average.