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Young students who see adults and older children reading or using texts in different ways are learning to appreciate and use materials. Exhibit 4.4 presents the PIRLS 2016 Parents Like Reading scale. As described in “About the Scale,” students’ parents were asked a series of questions about their reading enjoyment and students were scored according to their parents’ responses. Exhibit 4.4 shows students’ average reading achievement in relation to how much their parents like to read. Across the PIRLS 2016 countries, the students whose parents Very Much Like to read (32%) had higher average achievement than the 51 percent of the students whose parents only like to read Somewhat (535 vs. 508). In turn, the students with parents who Do Not Like to read (17%) had the lowest achievement (488).

Compared to PIRLS 2011, parental attitudes toward reading in 2016 were less positive on average in 31 countries, and more positive in only 2 countries.