The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a stratified random measure to systematically sample the performance of three age groups in a variety of subjects so that generalizations can be made to the United States as a whole. Past NAEP mean total reading scores have indicated that, in general, girls read slightly better than boys, whites read considerably better than blacks, and children who live in advantaged urban communities read better than those from rural or disadvantaged urban communities. A comparison of mean reading scores from the 1970 and 1980 assessments was made to see whether reading ability levels had improved during that ten-year period. The comparison indicated that (1) 9-year-old students read significantly better, 13-year-old students read slightly better, and 17-year-old students read slightly worse than their 1970 counterparts; (2) boys made slightly better gains over the ten-year period than did girls; (3) those from rural and disadvantaged urban communities made greater gains than those from advantaged urban communities; and (4) blacks made greater gains than did whites at all three age levels. The most important trend occurring over this period was that the worst readers improved the most, a trend that supports the continued government funding of disadvantaged student programs such as Right to Read and Title I. (HTH)