Add an IIOReadProgressListener to your reader.

   IIOReadProgressListener listener = new MyReadProgressListener();
   reader.addIIOReadProgressListener(listener);

It’ll throw events while the reading process is going on. The following example shows a JProgressBar while reading the image fruit.png, to be used as background.

Main.java:

import javax.imageio.metadata.*; 
import javax.imageio.stream.*;
import javax.imageio.event.*;
import javax.imageio.*;
 
import javax.swing.event.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.awt.*; 
import java.io.*;
  
public class Main extends JFrame
{
   JProgressBar progressBar;
   BufferedImage background = null;
  
   public Main() {
      addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
         public void windowClosing(WindowEvent we) {
            System.exit(1);
         }
      });
 
      progressBar = new JProgressBar(0, 100);
 
      getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
      getContentPane().add(BorderLayout.NORTH, progressBar);
    }
 
   public void loadBackgroundImage(String filename) throws Exception {
      Iterator readers = ImageIO.getImageReadersByFormatName("png");
      ImageReader reader = (ImageReader) readers.next();
 
      IIOReadProgressListener listener = new MyReadProgressListener();
      reader.addIIOReadProgressListener(listener);
 
      ImageInputStream iis = ImageIO.createImageInputStream(new File(filename));
      reader.setInput(iis, true);
      background = reader.read(0);
   }
 
   public static void main(String []args) throws Exception {
      Main main = new Main();
      main.setSize(400, 150);
      main.setVisible(true);
  
      main.loadBackgroundImage("fruit.png");
   }
 
   public void paint(Graphics g) {
      System.out.println(background);
      if (background != null) {
         g.drawImage(background, 0, 0, getWidth(), getHeight(), this);
      }
   }
 
   class MyReadProgressListener implements IIOReadProgressListener {
 
	public MyReadProgressListener() {}
 
        public void imageProgress(ImageReader source, final float percentageDone) {
           System.out.println("imageProgress: " + percentageDone);
 
           SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
              public void run() {
                 progressBar.setValue((int) percentageDone);
              }
           });   
        }
 
        public void imageComplete(ImageReader source) {
           SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
              public void run() {
                 try {
                    // wait for a bit until bufferedimage is assigned by reader
                    Thread.sleep(50);
                 }
                 catch(InterruptedException e) { }
                 repaint();
              }
           });              
        }
 
        public void imageStarted(ImageReader source, int imageIndex)  { }
        public void readAborted(ImageReader source)                   { }
        public void sequenceComplete(ImageReader source)              { }
        public void sequenceStarted(ImageReader source, int minIndex) { }
        public void thumbnailComplete(ImageReader source)             { }
        public void thumbnailProgress(ImageReader source, float percentageDone) { }
        public void thumbnailStarted(ImageReader source, int imageIndex, int thumbnailIndex) { }
   }
}