Use and Impact of PIRLS
England has participated in PIRLS every five years since the first cycle in 2001. Results for England are published in national reports that are available on the English governmentʼs website. The government typically issues a press release summarizing the main findings, and provides a link to the full national report.28 Although the publication of PIRLS results generates some media coverage within England, the results are not as widely reported as those of other studies.29 In the past, the mainstream press have focused on attainment, gender gaps, and attitudes toward reading, and summaries of the PIRLS results have been publicized online by other organizations, particularly the main teacher unions.
Current reading initiatives have to some extent evolved in response to international evidence—in PIRLS and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)—that shows that standards of reading literacy in England are below those of international competitors, and that students who enjoy reading from an early age tend to have higher attainment scores in PIRLS.30 PIRLS has been used by other educational stakeholders such as the charity Save the Children, which commissioned an in‑depth analysis of the PIRLS 2011 results to support its “Read On. Get On” project.31,32 PIRLS data also have been used by scholars and researchers in England to address educational inequalities, attitudes toward reading, and technical aspects of the study critically.33