here - TIMSS and PIRLS Home - Boston College

Chapter 1
International Student Achievement
in Reading
Chapter 1 presents the reading comprehension achievement results for
students in their fourth year of formal schooling for the 40 countries,
including Belgium with 2 education systems and Canada with 5 provinces, that
participated in PIRLS 2006 (45 participants in total). The chapter begins with a
discussion of students’ achievement in PIRLS 2006, and then presents changes
in achievement over the past 5-year period for those countries that also
participated in PIRLS 2001. The reading comprehension achievement results
for 2006 and changes from 2001 also are provided by gender. Next, the chapter
presents the corresponding achievement results for the reading purposes and
processes of reading comprehension described in the PIRLS 2006 Assessment
Framework and Specifications. The two reading purposes are Literary and
Informational. Achievement in the processes of reading comprehension is
reported for two categories: (1) Retrieving and straightforward inferencing
and (2) Interpreting, integrating, and evaluating.
How Do Countries Differ in Reading Achievement?
Exhibit 1.1 displays the distributions of achievement for PIRLS 2006 for
40 participating countries, including Belgium with 2 education systems
and Canada with 5 provinces. Historically, because they have separately
administered education systems, England and Scotland, as well as Hong
Kong, prior to becoming a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the
People’s Republic of China, have participated separately in IEA studies and
Mullis, I.V.S., Kennedy, A.M., Martin, M.O., & Sainsbury, M. (2006). PIRLS 2006 assessment framework and specifications, (2nd ed.).
Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College.