Individual, Home, and Community Factors

PISA/PIRLS Task ForceInternational Reading Association

www.reading.orgJanuary 2005

Individual, Home, and Community

Home literacy environmentSocioeconomic status and occupationGender, reading engagement, motivation, and underachievement

Home Literacy Environment

PIRLS findings

• Engaging in early literacy activities relates positively with reading achievement

• Children who were read to often had high reading performance

• Students with the highest reading achievement had parents who spent six or more hours per week reading

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Home Literacy Environment

PIRLS findings

• Students whose parents express positive attitudes toward reading had higher achievement

• Homes with many children’s books (more than 100) had higher reading achievement than homes with fewer than 10 children’s books

• Majority language students outperform minority language students

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Home Literacy Environment

PISA findings

• Native–born students outperform students born abroad or who have foreign-born parents

• Parent involvement, support, and communication correlated positively with achievement

• Cultural possessions are associated more closely with reading performance than family wealth

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Home Literacy Environment

Establishing ContextDo parents Foster early literacy activities? How do we

know? Model good reading attitudes and habits? Maintain homes with extensive literacy

resources, including children’s books? Involve themselves in children’s learning with

support and communication? What is the relationship between parents and schools?

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Home Literacy Environment

Establishing Context What percentage of students are minority

language? What languages and/or dialects do students speak at home?

Are special provisions made for children to learn the language of assessment?

Do parents support and foster majority language competence?

Do adults participate in continuing education?

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Planning Action

What can reading professionals do to improve the home literacy environment?

Home Literacy Environment

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Socioeconomic Status and Occupation

PISA findings

• Socioeconomic index of parental occupation correlates strongly with achievement, but parental behavior can be more significant

• Parent education level matters

• Average reading achievement higher in schools with few students from disadvantaged homes

• Overall SES of school population had greater impact than SES at the level of the individual student

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Socioeconomic Status and Occupation

Establishing Context

Is SES stratification a significant factor for educational opportunities?

How much difference in achievement can be attributed to SES at the level of the individual student? At the level of the individual school?

Does SES interact with immigrant or language minority students?

What school factors seem to mitigate SES?

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Socioeconomic Status and Occupation

Establishing Context

To what extent do schools try to reduce the impact of social disadvantage on student performance?

How big is the performance gap between high and low SES students?

How does this compare to international averages?

Why might the gap be as it is?

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Planning Action

What can reading professionals do to ensure equity and equality?

Socioeconomic Status and Occupation

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Characteristic Females Males

Student attitudes to reading and self-concept as readers (PIRLS)

Viewed reading more positively

Frequency of reading (PISA)

Read more often

Diversity of reading outside school (PIRLS/PISA)

Read fiction for enjoyment

Read newspapers, comics, email, & web pages for information

Reading performance and achievement (PIRLS)

Outperformed in all countries, with more pronounced advantage in narrative than nonfiction

Gender, Reading Engagement, Motivation

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Gender, Reading Engagement, Motivation

PISA findings —

• Time spent reading is associated with the gap between good and poor readers 

• Motivation to read contributes to the gap between good and poor readers

• At the individual student level, the majority of the least capable students were males of low socio-economic status.

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Gender, Reading Engagement, Motivation

Establishing Context

Do female students demonstrate superior reading achievement? Why or why not?

How large is the differential in achievement between male and female students?

Is reading engagement generally high, medium or low compared to other countries?

How much of the reading achievement difference is attributable to reading engagement rather than SES?

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Gender, Reading Engagement, Motivation

Establishing Context

What literacy practices are successful in increasing boys’ reading engagement?

How much time do students spend on reading outside school?

  What do we know about our students' attitudes to reading in and out of school? High/medium/low?

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Gender, Reading Engagement, Motivation

Establishing Context

What do we know about our students' self-concept or identity as a reader?

What do we know about students' resilience or perseverance in response to reading challenge?

What do we know about attitude differences between different groups?

Is the balance right between achievement and enjoyment?

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Planning Action

What can reading professionals do increase motivation and engagement?

Gender, Reading Engagement, Motivation

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