Despite overall improvements in reading proficiency rates, the gap in reading proficiency between higher-income and lower-income children over the past decade has widened by nearly 20 percent and gotten worse in nearly every state, a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation finds. According to Early Reading Proficiency in the United States (4 pages, PDF), 66 percent of all fourth-graders, 76 percent of fourth-graders attending high-poverty schools, 81 percent of Latino fourth-graders, and 83 percent of African-American fourth-graders are not proficient in reading. The report also found that the percentage of non-proficient fourth-graders varied by state, with Massachusetts (53 percent) having the fewest non-proficient readers and Mississippi (79 percent) the most; Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Rhode Island recording the biggest declines in the number of non-proficient readers; and West Virginia, Michigan, Alaska, and South Dakota recording slight increases.