Since approximately 1988, the literacy achievement gap has remained stagnant in the United States. Despite data that suggest desegregation efforts have been most impactful on closing this gap, contemporary intervention efforts have often taken the form of homogeneous ability grouping and tracking, practices that lead to segregation along racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and lingual lines. Ability grouping carries negative consequences for students through middle and high school levels and disproportionately impacts marginalized groups. Despite empirical data confirming this trend, there are no literature reviews specific to English language arts analyzing this data. The purpose of this review is twofold: (1) To identify student-level characteristics determinant of reading ability grouping and (2) to identify the longitudinal impacts of literacy ability grouping and tracking in the United States.