From March 2 to 30, approximately 5,000 fourth-grade students from 160 Latvian schools will participate in the international reading literacy study PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). Students are not graded in the PIRLS assessment — the aim of the study is to provide the country and schools with objective, internationally comparable data on students’ reading literacy and text comprehension.
In a digital environment, children will read literary and informational texts and answer questions about what they have read. In addition, students, parents, and teachers will complete questionnaires about daily reading habits, the learning environment at school and at home, and attitudes toward reading.
PIRLS helps to understand how well children are able to comprehend texts and use information — an essential skill for organizing everyday life and opening up further opportunities for development in the future. Today, reading literacy no longer means only the ability to decode text — it enables individuals to understand context, critically evaluate media content, and make informed decisions in areas such as finance, health, and beyond. Reading literacy is a prerequisite for successful participation in the labour market and civic life.
The previous study cycle in 2021 showed a decline in Latvian students’ reading literacy between 2016 and 2021. At the same time, since the first assessment in 2001, Latvian students’ average achievement has consistently been — and remains — significantly above the international average.
In the 2021 cycle, the lowest reading performance in Latvia was observed among boys living outside cities, whose results fell below the PIRLS scale average. If students are unable to fully comprehend and use more complex information, their future opportunities to successfully continue education, enter the labour market, and participate in society may be at risk. Study data help identify such difficulties at an early stage and plan targeted support, for example through the programme “School in the Community,” to ensure that students acquire the necessary skills.
In the previous study cycle, students experienced difficulties with literary text tasks, drawing direct conclusions, and interpreting ideas and information. Challenges also arose in understanding how to organise answers correctly in response tables.
Students — especially boys — sometimes lack the patience or motivation to write more elaborated responses of one or two sentences, which reduces opportunities to more accurately assess their understanding of the text.
Latvian girls performed significantly better than girls in other countries in tasks requiring inferences about a literary character’s feelings, while Latvian boys in some cases outperformed girls in clearly formulated information-retrieval tasks by selecting the correct answer. Overall, across all PIRLS cycles, Latvian students have demonstrated stronger performance in higher-level comprehension tasks than in simpler ones.
Previous research shows that reading literacy is closely linked to enjoyment of reading. Therefore, the main goal of reading literacy development is to ensure that students enjoy reading and that this interest continues over time. The texts used in the assessment are carefully selected to be engaging for students and appealing to both boys and girls. Attention is also paid to ensuring diversity among the main characters in the texts.
The results of the new study in Latvia will be published in autumn next year. The study helps education specialists and policymakers better understand students’ strengths and weaknesses in order to improve the learning process and develop support systems for enhancing reading literacy. For parents and teachers, the results provide an opportunity to observe how Latvian students’ skills change across study cycles and how their performance in this fundamental skill compares with that of peers in other countries. For sector specialists, the findings may encourage discussion about necessary initiatives (improvements, methods, approaches) to raise children’s reading literacy.
Latvia has participated in PIRLS since the first cycle in 2001 and this year is taking part in the fifth study cycle together with more than 60 countries.
More information about previous PIRLS studies is available on the website of the Ministry of Education and Science.
The study is implemented by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science and the University of Latvia’s Institute of Educational Research.
Recommendations by researchers from the University of Latvia’s Faculty of Education, Psychology and Art, Institute of Educational Research, for the development of reading literacy are published in the section “Materials for Teachers.”
Participation in the study is financed with support from the European Union Funds.
