The PIRLS 2016 Encyclopedia
The PIRLS 2016 Encyclopedia provides an overview of the context in which learning to read takes place in each country. A country’s education system at a given point in time is the result of a series of decisions made by government representatives and citizens in response to current priorities in learning goals, politics, resources, and historical traditions. The PIRLS 2016 Encyclopedia describes each participant’s overall context for language and reading instruction, including the number of languages involved, the centrality of decision-making, priorities regarding literacy, curricular emphasis on the complexity of comprehension strategies, and resources for helping struggling students and teachers.
The PIRLS 2016 Encyclopedia provides a qualitative complement to the two quantitatively oriented international reports that summarize the achievement results in PIRLS and ePIRLS, as well as extensive questionnaire data collected about the home, school, and classroom contexts for learning to read.
The PIRLS 2016 Encyclopedia comprises two major parts: 1) Curriculum Questionnaire results provided by each country and benchmarking participant and 2) the chapters they authored. The Curriculum Questionnaire results provide comparative data about cross-national aspects of educational systems that can be answered in a questionnaire format. The chapters provide participants the opportunity to instill appreciation of the uniqueness of each educational setting regarding particular educational challenges and special initiatives that have been successful.