Grade 4 students place fourth in tests assessing best of 40 countries
Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun, Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Vancouver Sun; CanWest News Service
Thursday, November 29, 2007
British Columbia students have aced another international test, with Grade 4s out-performing their counterparts in almost every other country in a global literacy assessment last year.
Nine- and 10-year-olds from B.C. finished fourth in the test of 215,000 pupils from 40 countries and five Canadian provinces -- out-ranked only by the Russian Federation, Hong Kong and Alberta.
Ontario pupils came sixth, while Quebec and Nova Scotia were further down the list at 16th and 23rd.
"B.C. is a world leader in literacy and this international assessment proves that," Education Minister Shirley Bond said in a release moments after the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study results were announced in Boston.
"This is the first year B.C. [pupils] have participated in this assessment and the results are outstanding."
Literacy experts agreed B.C. has much to celebrate but cautioned against forgetting about those pupils -- about one in five -- who struggle to read.
"It's great that we're doing well, but there are still lots of children who are not succeeding," said Mark Campbell of Literacy BC.
The 2006 PIRLS found a strong relationship between Grade 4 reading scores and literacy activities in the home, which confirms the importance of reading to preschool children, Campbell said in an e-mail response to a Vancouver Sun query. But many thousands of parents don't have sufficient literacy skills to do that, he added.
"Breaking that intergenerational cycle of low literacy is an urgent priority so that everyone will have the opportunity to share in the many economic and social benefits of strong literacy."
John Anderson, a University of Victoria education professor, said B.C., Alberta and Ontario generally do well in international assessments and that should be a comfort to parents.
But strong performance when compared to other countries doesn't discount provincial assessments that regularly find roughly 20 per cent of Grade 4 pupils can't read as well as expected.
"We are doing quite well [internationally]. But compared [with] expectations here in B.C., improvements could be made," he said in an interview.
Ina Mullis, co-director of the International Study Centre at Boston College in the United States, which conducted the study for the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement, acknowledged Canada's strong showing.
"I would say, in general, congratulations Canada. Most of the provinces seem to be doing so well. In general, Canada has a strong curriculum and a strong instructional and assessment system that keeps an eye on progress."
The U.S. ranked 18th and England was 19th, both slipping in the ratings since 2001.
The study suggests B.C. students are more likely than others to read for pleasure, with 53 per cent saying they do so every day or almost every day.
Only the Russian Federation did better, with 58 per cent.
At least half of the Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia students also said they read daily when not in school, although Canadian children dropped down the list when reading on the Internet was included in the calculation.
The study also showed girls solidly outperformed boys, reflecting a gender gap exposed repeatedly here and abroad.
The differences in scores between boys and girls were not as wide in Canada as in most countries, and Ontario narrowed the gap slightly from 2001, when the province participated in the last international testing of Grade 4 students.
B.C. had one of the smallest differences between male and female achievement of any jurisdiction in the world, Bond noted in a statement that also credited the Liberal government's literacy strategies overall for the strong B.C. results.
Ontario pupils improved in their scoring although students in Quebec, the only other province that participated last time around, experienced a slip.
All five provinces, however, performed well above the average score of 500 on the test, which involved an extensive battery of assessments focusing on literary and informational reading skills. Alberta pupils scored 560 points, B.C. students 558, Ontario 555, Nova Scotia 542, and Quebec 533.
The study also set broad reading achievement benchmarks of advanced, high, intermediate and low.
Alberta placed third overall in its percentage of pupils who read at the top levels, with 17 per cent achieving the advanced designation and 57 per cent reaching the second-highest category.
B.C. and Ontario tied for fourth place in the percentage of pupils achieving the top benchmarks.
The researchers, who dissected factors that influence achievement, highlighted a strong connection between reading skills in Grade 4 and parents putting in time with their preschool children by telling them stories, singing songs, and playing with alphabet toys and word games.
There was a significant difference in scores between children with more than 100 books at home and those with less than 10.
The study involved 148 schools in B.C., 150 in Alberta, 200 in Ontario and Quebec, and 201 in Nova Scotia.
Overall worst performers on the global tests were students in South Africa, Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, and Indonesia.
jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com
