Reading Literacy of Primary School Children has Further Declined
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On Tuesday, 16 May, the education researcher Professor Nele McElvany from TU Dortmund University presented the latest results from the IGLU Study (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS, known in German as IGLU)) in Berlin: Over the past twenty years, the average reading literacy in Germany of school students in the fourth grade has significantly declined. As things stand, around a quarter fall below the level needed to learn by reading. Educational equity has not improved since the study was first conducted in 2001. “This cannot be allowed to continue,” said McElvany.
Since 2001, IGLU has examined every five years how reading ability is developing in an international comparison. After the PISA fiasco in 2000, it is intended to show, among other things, whether Germany has achieved the goals it set itself for the further development of education. The study’s scientific director is Professor Nele McElvany, Executive Director of the Center for Research on Education and School Development at TU Dortmund University. On the basis of the current results, which illustrate the performance of over 4,000 school students in the fourth grade in 2021, she concludes: “There have been numerous efforts over the past twenty years, but the latest study shows that the desired impact has largely failed to materialize.”
Downward trend in Germany since 2006
She calls the situation “alarming”: Although the average reading literacy of school students in the fourth grade in Germany is in the middle bracket in an international comparison, there has been a downward trend since 2006. Since then, the average has deteriorated by 24 points. Although Germany’s current score of 524 points still conforms with the EU average, several European countries perform significantly better, including, for example, England (558), Finland (549), Poland (549), Bulgaria (540) and Italy (537). In top place worldwide are Singapore (587) and Hong Kong (573). This long-term development shows that neither the coronavirus pandemic nor the influx of refugees is the sole cause. “Adverse effects related to the pandemic and changes in classroom composition explain only part of the decline in performance. It must go on record that the trend of declining performance among school students has existed since 2006 and that these contributing factors have only exacerbated the problematic development in our education system in recent years.”
This negative development is particularly evident in the group of school students whose reading ability is inadequate. The proportion of those who do not achieve the level required for secondary school has risen substantially since 2001, from 17 percent to now 25 percent. This means that a quarter of the school students in the fourth grade fall below the level needed to learn by reading and could therefore face considerable difficulties in their further schooling or later in their careers. At the same time, the percentage of school students in the fourth grade who can read either well or very well dropped from 47 percent to 39 percent over the same period, meaning that the gap between good and poor readers has also increased.
Social background is still a deciding factor
“The various measures implemented over the past two decades have had hardly any impact on improving educational success and educational equity or equality of opportunity in Germany,” says Professor Nele McElvany. Depending on the family background of primary school children, substantial differences in both performance and number of recommendations for grammar school continue to be seen. Now as before, school students from working-class families have to perform substantially better than ones from academic families in order to receive such a recommendation. Even with the same reading skills and basic cognitive abilities, the chances of child from a (skilled) working-class family receiving a recommendation for grammar school from their teacher is 2.5 times lower than those of a child whose parents are senior civil servants.
Social disparities, as IGLU 2021 clearly illustrates, continue to be very pronounced in Germany. Equally, migration-related performance disparities have not decreased compared to 2001. “Findings from other participating countries show more positive results, implying that a strong link between family background and academic success at school, as is the case in Germany, does not have to be inevitable and automatic,” explains Professor Nele McElvany. For example, social background carries less weight in countries such as Finland, Italy or Slovenia than in Germany, while in Denmark, the Netherlands or the Czech Republic an immigrant background has less effect.
Need to foster reading literacy
“In view of the alarming decline in average reading literacy and the high proportion of one quarter of school students with inadequate reading skills, it is necessary to (further) develop targeted measures,” says McElvany. To this end, ensuring basic competencies such as reading ability by systematically fostering such skills in the first years of primary school must become a priority. While on the one hand there is a need to improve the reading ability of poor readers, fostering and upgrading that of good readers at the same time is also necessary. In this context, the proportion of weekly teaching time invested in activities related to reading must also be taken into consideration: While the international average spent on reading activities is around 200 minutes of teaching time per week, in Germany it is only 141 minutes.
With a view to social responsibility, Professor McElvany also explicitly points out: “With reference to the substantial educational inequalities, IGLU shows that virtually nothing has changed in Germany over the past twenty years. This is at the expense of the individuals concerned, our society and our country, and this cannot be allowed to continue.” Germany’s education system must in the future ensure that all school students have basic reading skills by the time they finish primary school.
Results:
Detailed analyses on key topics in the context of primary schools in Germany will be published each month in the series “Tuesdays for Education”, starting on 13 June 2023.
About IGLU/PIRLS
IGLU/PIRLS tests reading literacy and records the attitude toward reading and the reading habits of school students in the fourth grade in an international comparison in a 5-year cycle. In Germany, which participated in the representative survey for the fifth time, a total of 4,611 school students from 252 classes in the fourth grade, their parents, teachers and school principals took part in IGLU 2021. At international level, around 400,000 school students from 65 countries and regions participated. The extensive survey provides important background information. The underlying project is funded in equal shares by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany.
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