Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)

PIRLS is an international comparative study in which approximately 40 countries participate to assess 4th grade students’ reading ability in their native language. This grade level was chosen for PIRLS as it is an important transition point in children’s development as readers. Typically, at this point, students have learned how to read and are now reading to learn. Thus, shortcomings in understanding written texts at this stage may have a negative impact on performance in most other subject areas.

PIRLS is based on a comprehensive framework that calls for students to be able to demonstrate their understanding of a wide variety of texts for two major purposes:

1. to acquire and use information and
2. for literary experience.

As the Qatar Curriculum standards, PIRLS places a strong emphasis on critical analysis, not only a repetition of learned or read facts. As they read, students are asked to engage in a full range of skills and strategies, including:

Retrieve explicitly stated information

Making straightforward inferences

Interpreting and integrating ideas

Examining and evaluating content, language and textual elements

Objectives of PIRLS
The objective of the study is to provide countries with international comparative data as well as with national trend data on reading literacy of 4th grade students.

The definition of reading literacy used in PIRLS is the following: “For PIRLS, reading literacy is defined as the ability to understand and use those written language forms required by society and/or valued by the individual.

Young readers can construct meaning from a variety of texts. They read to learn, to participate in communities of readers in school and everyday life, and for enjoyment.”

The design of the PIRLS study focuses mainly on providing results at the system level; it is not intended to report individual student scores.

Besides the reading tests, questionnaire data from school principals, teachers, students and parents are collected and analyzed. This background information is intended for identifying factors or combination of factors that are associated with high levels of reading literacy.

Target population
Fourth grade students. In Qatar, the PIRLS administration is census based. That means that all eligible students in MoE, private Arabic and Independent schools, in 4th grade, participated in the PIRLS 2006 main administration.

Test materials
The PIRLS tests consist of texts that include one realistic story or tale and one informational text - both appropriate for the grade level. The students have to read each of the two texts and answer some questions (both multiple choice and open ended questions) that test the depth of understanding of the students. There are altogether five literary texts and five informational texts which are combined in different variation to produce a total of 13 different booklets. Each booklet contains one literary and one informational text. Students have about 80 minutes of testing time to read and answer question for the two texts.

Importance of PIRLS for Qatar

• The analysis of student performance in PIRLS will inform Qatar about the present reading abilities of Qatari students in 4th grade as well as analyses of sub-groups (e.g. boys vs. girls, differences by school type, etc.).



• PIRLS will provide comparative results of the position of Qatari students in comparison to those of around 40 countries worldwide.



• Since PIRLS is conducted every 5 years, Qatar’s participation in PIRLS 2006 represents a baseline from which the country can track its progress in 4th grade reading performance over time. The Qatari educational reform is expected to lift up students performance in the next 5 years. Thus, the comparison of 2006 and 2011 cycles of PIRLS will present Qatar with an external validation of the impact of its educational reform efforts upon reading comprehension in 4th grade students, in addition to the internal one (QCEA).



• Together with the questionnaire data it will also be possible to identify factors that are related to literacy acquisition, like instructional practices, school resources and encouragement for reading by the family.

By pointing out strengths and weaknesses in reading literacy of Qatari students, decision makers will have additional information about where to focus efforts for improving early reading literacy acquisition.

PIRLS will complement results from the QCEA in Arabic as a subject matter. PIRLS, due to its very specific focus on reading and understanding longer text passages, can offer deeper insights in reading literacy performance of Qatari primary students than annual tests in Arabic as a subject matter.

PIRLS is organized by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), which is an independent, international cooperative of national research institutions and governmental research agencies in which Qatar is a member. More information about PIRLS is available online at http://pirls.bc.edu.