Trends in Reading Achievement by Gender
For the countries with trend data from previous PIRLS assessments, Exhibit 1.6 shows graphs of average achievement by gender. The countries are presented in alphabetical order. In nearly all of the countries, girls have had higher achievement than boys, historically as well as in PIRLS 2016. Portugal was the only country to close the gender gap in 2016, and this was in comparison to PIRLS 2011. Several countries narrowed the gap in 2011 (France, Israel, Italy, and Spain), but then girls once again had higher achievement than boys in PIRLS 2016.
