SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Assessment and Item Specifications elaborate on the framework as guidance for item development conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the NAEP assessment development contractor(s). The framework development and update process also produces recommendations for contextual variables, which supports NCES' development of the questionnaires administered to students, teachers, and schools to help the public understand the achievement results in each subject. By engaging NAEP's audiences, partners, and stakeholders in the panels that provide recommendations for NAEP frameworks and by seeking public comment, NAEP frameworks reflect content valued by the public as important to measure. Additional information on the Governing Board's work in developing NAEP Frameworks and Specifications can be found at www.nagb.gov/​naep-frameworks/​frameworks-overview.html.

All responses will be taken into consideration before finalizing the updated NAEP Reading Assessment Framework for Board adoption. Once adopted, the framework will be used to guide assessment development and reporting for the 2025 NAEP Reading Assessment.

Additional information (including the materials referenced below) can be found on the project website at www.naepframeworkupdate.org.

Proposed Updated Reading Framework for the 2025 NAEP

Starting on June 22, 2020, the proposed revised framework can be downloaded from the framework project website at www.naepframeworkupdate.org.

Existing Reading Framework for the NAEP

The existing framework (adopted in 2004) can be downloaded from the Governing Board website at www.nagb.gov/​naep-frameworks/​reading.html.

Governing Board's Periodic Review and Updating of NAEP Frameworks

Governing Board policy articulates the Board's commitment to a comprehensive, inclusive, and deliberative process to determine and update the content and format of all NAEP assessments. For each NAEP assessment, this process results in a NAEP framework, outlining what is to be measured and how it will be measured. Periodically, the Governing Board reviews existing NAEP frameworks to determine if changes are warranted. Each NAEP framework development and update process considers a wide set of factors, including but not limited to reviews of recent research on teaching and learning, changes in state and local standards and assessments, and the latest perspectives on the nation's future needs and desirable levels of achievement.

In 2018, the Board initiated a review of the NAEP Reading Framework. The Governing Board's NAEP Reading Framework review used expert commentary to determine whether a framework update was required and the type of updates that may be needed. As a result of this review, the Governing Board initiated a framework update process for the NAEP Reading Assessment. Learn more about the review at www.nagb.gov/​focus-areas/​framework-development/​framework-development-reading.html.

Summary of Proposed Revisions

Compared to the existing NAEP Reading Framework for the 2009-2019 NAEP Reading Assessments, the draft updated framework proposes the following changes:

• Reporting scores in three different areas: Reading literature, reading science, and reading social studies, rather than reporting scores by literary and informational texts.
• Making all assessment tasks purpose-driven, rather than having a subset of tasks that are purpose-driven. In purpose-driven tasks, students are told why they are reading a passage and what they will be doing with it afterward, before they begin reading.
• Adding `Use and Apply' to the three comprehension targets that are scored, meaning that students will be asked to apply their reading to a culminating task such as making a recommendation, developing a website, and the like. The four comprehension targets would be Locate and Recall, Integrate and Interpret, Analyze and Evaluate and Use and Apply.
• Providing a basis for not only reporting but also explaining student achievement by collecting and reporting data about students' engagement, effort, and experiences with reading tasks.
• Accounting for students' differential knowledge by providing necessary background knowledge on novel topics and administering short probes to determine test-takers' knowledge about topics they will read about.
• Including digital forms of text that are dynamic and multimodal and that require navigation as well as comprehension skills.
• Introducing an expanded view of vocabulary that goes beyond individual word meanings to also include knowledge of language structures.

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Authority: Pub. L. 107-279, Title III—National Assessment of Educational Progress § 301.

85 FR 35923