PIRLS 2006 Encyclopedia

PIRLS 2006 Encyclopedia• Understanding and interpreting texts;• Engaging with and responding to texts;• Creating and shaping texts;• Text structure and organization;• Sentence structure and punctuation; and• Presentation.The renewed framework has a reduced number of learning objectives within eachstrand. 14 Those for grade 4 related to reading include the objectives for the Understandingand Interpreting Texts strand:• Make notes on and use evidence from across a text to explain events or ideas.• Infer writers’ perspectives from what is written and from what is implied.• Compare different types of narrative and information texts, and identify how theyare structured.• Distinguish between everyday use of words and their subject specific use.• Explore how writers use language for comic and dramatic effects.Fourth-grade reading instruction also includes the objectives for the Engaging andResponding to Texts strand:• Reflect on reading habits and preferences, and plan personal reading goals.• Compare the usefulness of techniques such as visualization, prediction, andempathy in exploring the meaning of texts.• Compare how a common theme is presented in poetry, prose, and other media.Reading Instruction in the Primary GradesInstructional TimeThe amount of time allocated to each curriculum subject is not prescribed. In 2006, theOffice for Standards in Education, the organization that inspects and reports on thequality of education in England, reported that a daily literacy hour remained in mostschools and, in 2005, “in many schools, a significant proportion of the week is taken up15, 16with English and literacy-related lessons, especially in reading”.Instructional MaterialsThere are no centrally published and mandated resources for the teaching of reading,although many publishers produce sets of graded readers for use in the early years. Avariety of support materials are often used alongside graded books with controlledvocabulary. Most schools used graded schemes in conjunction with selections of fictionand nonfiction texts in class and school libraries. A small number of dual-language textsalso are available. The Primary Strategy has produced units of work which use extractsfrom good quality texts to model various teaching approaches.EnglandTIMSS & PIRLSInternational Study CenterLynch School of Education, Boston College 115