U.S. Students’ Reading Literacy Compared with Their International Peers

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U.S. fourth-graders’ performance in reading literacy declined between 2011 and 2016 but was higher than students in more than half of the other education systems participating in an international reading assessment. The report, Reading Achievement of U.S. Fourth-Grade Students in an International Context, was released today (Dec. 5) by the National Center for Education Statistics and uses results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016. The report compares the performance of U.S. fourth-grade students to their peers in 57 other education systems and also includes results for ePIRLS, an innovative online assessment administered to students in 16 education systems for the first time. Results from PIRLS 2016 show that the U.S. average overall score for reading was higher than the averages for 30 education systems, lower than the averages for 12 education systems, and not significantly different from the averages for 15 education systems. In addition, 16 percent of U.S. fourth-graders performed at or above the Advanced international benchmark, which represents the highest level of reading literacy skills. This was higher than the international median of 10 percent. In contrast to the paper-based PIRLS assessment, students from the U.S. and 15 other systems took ePIRLS on a computer, simulating an internet environment. The assessment uses only informational texts and measures how easily students are able to navigate through different types of nonfictional materials online. The results for ePIRLS show that, among the 16 participating systems, the U.S. average online reading score was higher than the online averages for 10 education systems, lower than the averages for 3 education systems, and not significantly different from the averages for 2 education systems.