Reading Literacy in the United States

📖 The Scoop

Using data from the 1991 IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) Reading Literacy Study, a study compared United States fourth- and ninth-grade students to students in 32 other countries; examined relationships between reading comprehension and aspects of family, schooling, and community; and investigated the nature of reading instruction in American classrooms. National samples of classes at the grade level containing the most 9-year-olds and 14-year-olds were used. A "world average" was constructed of the 18 participating nations that are also members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Results indicated that (1) American fourth graders outperformed students from all other countries except Finland; (2) American ninth graders' performance was closely grouped with that of students from 15 other nations; (3) in the United States, White students read better than Black and Hispanic students; (4) most groups of American students outperformed the OECD average; (5) students whose parents did not finish high school read at about the same level as the OECD average at fourth grade, but fell below the average in the ninth grade; (6) when differences in wealth, race/ethnicity, level of parental education, and other related attributes were taken into account, children from one-parent mother-only families did as well as children from two-parent families; (7) parents' educational attainment influenced reading comprehension over and above other aspects of family background; (8) what teachers said they believed about reading instruction differed markedly from what they actually did and had students do. (Contains 70 references, 43 notes, 4 exhibits, 3 tables, and 29 figures of data.) (RS)

Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines / Literacy (fancy, right?)