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chapter 4: students’ reading attitudes, self-concept, and out-of-school activities
higher average achievement. Countries with lesser percentages of students at
the high level (less than 40%) included Kuwait, Morocco, Belgium (French),
New Zealand, France, Indonesia, Moldova, and South Africa.
Ten countries showed increased percentages of students at the high level
in 2006 compared with 2001, including Norway, the Netherlands, Iceland,
Germany, Italy, the Russian Federation, Hong Kong SAR, Latvia, Lithuania,
and France. However, eight participants had decreased percentages at the
high level—Macedonia, the United States, Romania, Morocco, New Zealand,
Moldova, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
As in PIRLS 2001, students’ characterizations of themselves in terms
of the levels of the reading self-concept index were broadly aligned with
their average reading achievement. Students at the high level had average
achievement 50 points higher than students at the medium level, and those at
the medium level had average achievement more than 40 points higher than
students at the low level. As noted above, however, there were few students
in the low group in each country.
Because the statement “I read slower than other students in my class” was not included in PIRLS 2001, the reading self concept
index for the 2001 data was computed by averaging across responses to the remaining three statements.
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