Florida FAST Test 2026-27: A Parent's Guide to PM1, PM2, PM3 and Score Levels

Updated September 4, 2026. Checked against the FDOE 2026–27 FAST Grades 3–10 Fact Sheet (August 2026), the 2026–2027 Statewide Assessment Schedule, the FDOE FAST test design summaries and blueprints, Understanding Florida Statewide Assessments Reports for Families (April 2026), the Promotion to Grade 4 Technical Assistance Paper (June 5, 2026), and Graduation Requirements for Florida's Statewide Assessments (revised December 2025).

FAST is three checkpoints, not one exam

If you are holding a FAST report and trying to decide whether to worry, the first thing to know is which of the three tests your child took. Florida gives the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking three times a year: PM1 at the beginning, PM2 in the middle, and PM3 at the end. FDOE states plainly that PM1 and PM2 results are for informational purposes only and "should not be considered student achievement designations." Only PM3 produces a summative score, and only PM3 is used for school accountability.

That single fact resolves most of the panic that arrives with a fall score report. Every PM window covers the full year's blueprint, including standards that have not been taught yet, so a September score is a starting line, not a grade. The rest of this guide follows the parent's year in order.

The 2026–27 FAST calendar

Districts pick their own testing days inside these windows, so ask the school for its exact dates rather than assuming the first day.

Grades 3–10 take FAST ELA Reading; grades 3–8 also take FAST Mathematics. Three other dates matter to specific families. B.E.S.T. Writing for grades 4–10 runs March 29 – April 9, 2027. The Grade 10 ELA Reading Retake has windows on September 8 – October 2, 2026, November 30 – December 18, 2026, May 3–28, 2027, and in summer on June 21–25 and July 12–16, 2027. The extra Grade 3 ELA Reading opportunity is offered in those same two summer windows. All of this comes from the 2026–2027 Statewide Assessment Schedule.

How long it takes and what is on it

FAST is computer adaptive. Items get harder or easier based on how your child responds, and every student sees a different set drawn from a common bank. Each test is given in one session on one day, and FDOE recommends only one subject test per day. A student still actively working when the scheduled time ends may keep going to the end of the school day.

PM3 is longer because it carries embedded field-test items. Those items do not count toward the score and are left out of the report. The FDOE test design summaries put ELA Reading at 36 to 40 items in every grade band, with roughly 5 field-test items added on PM3 and a 50/50 balance of literary and informational text. Mathematics runs 35 to 40 items in grades 3–5 and 36 to 40 items in grades 6–8, with about 4 to 5 spring field-test items.

ELA Reading uses the same three reporting categories at every grade: Reading Prose and Poetry at 25–35% of the test, Reading Informational Text at 25–35%, and Reading Across Genres and Vocabulary at 35–50%. Mathematics categories change by grade.

Students get blank scratch paper for every FAST Mathematics test. Grade 6 uses a four-function calculator inside the testing platform and grades 7–8 use a scientific calculator; online reference sheets are available in grades 4–8. Remote testing is available for PM1 and PM2 only, and only for students enrolled full time in a virtual program or who are hospital or homebound. It is not available for PM3, apart from a narrow exception for Florida Virtual School students in military families stationed outside Florida.

The complete 2026–27 scale score table

Scores are reported on the B.E.S.T. scale in five achievement levels. FDOE's own labels are Level 1 Well Below Grade Level, Level 2 Below Grade Level, Level 3 On Grade Level, Level 4 Proficient, and Level 5 Exemplary. Read that carefully, because it is the most common misreading of a FAST report: Level 3 means on grade level, and FDOE reserves the word "Proficient" for Level 4.

These ranges are printed in the 2026–27 FAST Grades 3–10 Fact Sheet. If a tutoring site shows your grade 4 math Level 3 starting near 310 or grade 7 near 330, it is quoting the retired 2022–23 provisional scale that was linked to the old FSA. The State Board adopted the current B.E.S.T. scale after standard setting in summer 2023, and scores have been reported on it since Winter 2023.

What a state-average year looks like

FDOE's end-of-year results for 2026, announced June 26, 2026, give parents the benchmark that report cards do not. In grades 3–10 ELA, 61% of students scored on or above grade level on PM3, up 4 points from 2025. In grades 3–8 Mathematics, 62% did, up 3 points.

The more useful numbers are the ones showing movement inside a single year. Statewide, ELA went from 39% on or above grade level at PM1 to 61% at PM3, a 22-point swing. Mathematics went from 16% at PM1 to 62% at PM3, a 46-point swing. More than five in six Florida students are below grade level on the fall math checkpoint, by design. If your child's PM1 math score came back Level 1, that is the statistical norm, not a crisis.

The two grades where the number decides something

For most students in most years, FAST informs instruction and nothing else. Two grades are different.

Grade 3 reading and promotion. A student must score Level 2 or higher on PM3 of Grade 3 FAST ELA Reading to be promoted to grade 4. For grade 3 the bar is Level 2, which is 186 or higher, not Level 3. A student who scores Level 1 gets another shot at the summer administration, and a Level 2 there also counts for promotion.

Beyond the retest, Florida law allows six good-cause exemptions from mandatory retention: limited English proficient students with fewer than two years in an ESOL program; students whose IEP says statewide assessment participation is not appropriate; students who hit the required score on an approved alternative reading assessment; students who demonstrate Level 2 performance through a portfolio; students with disabilities who have had more than two years of intensive reading instruction and a prior retention; and students with two or more years of intensive intervention who were previously retained twice. The Third Grade Guidance page lists the approved alternative assessments and the percentile each one requires: SAT-10 at the 45th percentile, and Terranova, ITBS, NWEA MAP, Star Reading, i-Ready, Istation, Achieve3000 LevelSet, Amira, and Edmentum Exact Path at the 50th percentile. A portfolio must include at least eight items per benchmark with 70% mastery, using grade-level passages of 100 to 700 words that are about half literary and half informational. Ask the school to start a portfolio the moment your child is flagged as at risk; the law lets you request it.

Grade 10 reading and graduation. Students must pass PM3 of the Grade 10 FAST ELA Reading assessment to earn a standard diploma. The passing score is 247, the bottom of Level 3, for students who entered grade 9 in 2022–23 and later; students who entered in 2021–22 or earlier can use the alternate passing score of 246. Four retake opportunities are offered across the year for students who do not pass in the spring.

There is also a concordant-score route. Since August 19, 2025, students who entered grade 9 in 2020–21 and beyond can substitute an SAT Reading and Writing score of 490, a PSAT/NMSQT or PSAT 10 Reading and Writing score of 470, an ACT or PreACT Secure English and Reading average of 18, or a CLT or CLT10 Grammar/Writing plus Verbal Reasoning sum of 39. The older SAT 480 pathway stays open only to students who entered grade 9 between 2020–21 and 2022–23, plus later cohorts whose score was earned before August 19, 2025. One rule is easy to miss: every enrolled grade 10 student must sit the ELA assessment even with a passing concordant score already on file. The details are in Graduation Requirements for Florida's Statewide Assessments.

How to read the Family Portal report

Results appear in Florida's Family Portal, reachable from the Florida Statewide Assessments Portal or through some districts' own parent portals. To log in directly you need your student's six-digit access code from the school, their date of birth, and their first name as it appears on school records. Access codes are reset every October, so last year's code will not work in the fall.

Scores start appearing three days after a testing window opens, and after that they post within 24 hours of a student finishing the test. The detailed report has five tabs, and the headline number on the first one is the least useful thing on the page.

• Overall gives the scale score, the achievement level, and, for FAST grades 3–10 only, a percentile rank. That percentile is based on the previous school year's percentile ranks, so treat it as a rough position among Florida peers rather than a live class ranking.
• Category Results is where the actual instruction happens. Each reporting category is scored below, at or near, or above the standard, with a box-and-whisker plot whose dot is your child's performance and whose whiskers show the range of scores they would likely earn on repeat attempts. A dot just under the line with wide whiskers is a very different situation from a dot far below with tight whiskers.
• Test Questions lists each item, its reporting category, and whether the response was correct, partial, incorrect, or blank. Field-test items are excluded. A cluster of blanks at the end usually means pacing, not knowledge.
• Progress compares PM1, PM2, and PM3 within the year, and on PM3 also compares PM3 scores across school years.
• Resources to Help Your Student offers strategies keyed to the results.

If you read only one screen, read Category Results. "Level 2 in grade 5 math" is not a plan. "Below the standard in Number Sense and Operations with Fractions and Decimals, at or near in everything else" is.

What to do between windows

The gap between PM1 in September and PM2 in December is roughly ten instructional weeks, which is enough time to move a reporting category. Pick the one or two weakest categories from the report, work them in short sessions two or three times a week, and re-check at the next window rather than chasing the overall level.

Grade 3 ELAPractice questions with detailed explanations

A simple year plan follows the windows. Treat September as diagnosis, practice the weak category twice a week through early December, and let PM2 measure whether it moved. Shift to mixed practice in February and March, because PM3 covers the full blueprint. In the two weeks before PM3, run one untimed set and one set timed to the real session length, so a 120-minute reading test is not the first long sitting of the year.

Finally, use the official sample items on the Florida Statewide Assessments Portal at least once before PM3. FDOE also releases full past tests under section 1008.22(8), Florida Statutes, with answer keys and the percentage of students who answered each item correctly. Practicing inside the real interface removes a category of avoidable points loss: students who lose time fighting the equation editor, the drag-and-drop grid, or the hot-text selection tool are losing points to the platform, not the standards.