Use and Impact of PIRLS
Macao participated in PIRLS 2016 and, on the completion of the internationally organized research, the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (Direcção dos Serviços de Educação e Juventude, or DSEJ) will analyze in depth the PIRLS results, scrutinize studentsʼ levels of reading literacy, and study the factors affecting students’ reading standards. The DSEJ also will look for ways to improve the teaching of reading comprehension, taking note of the experiences of advanced regions to improve Macao’s educational policies, planning, and classroom expertise. In order to enable reading assessment evidence to be used to improve teaching and the curriculum, the DSEJ will continue to organize teacher training related to teaching Chinese “character learning” and “reading” to enhance the professional capacity of teachers and promote teaching effectiveness. Since 2016, training workshops for teachers and seminars for school principals and senior administrators have been held to introduce the theoretical and assessment framework of PIRLS and to inform schools about how to hone students’ reading skills and strategies in relevant reading instruction practices in the classroom.38