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The PIRLS Reading Result--Better than You May Realize

12/17/2012

 
The PIRLS results are better than you may realize.

Last week, the results of the 2011 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) were published. This test compared reading ability in 4th grade children.

U.S. fourth-graders ranked 6th among 45 participating countries. Even better, US kids scored significantly better than the last time the test was administered in 2006.

There's a small but decisive factor that is often forgotten in these discussions: differences in orthography across languages.
Picture
Lots of factors go into learning to read. The most obvious is learning to decode--learning the relationship between letters and (in most languages) sounds. Decode is an apt term. The correspondence of letters and sound is a code that must be cracked.

In some languages the correspondence is relatively straightforward, meaning that a given letter or combination of letters reliably corresponds to a given sound. Such languages are said to have a shallow orthography. Examples include Finnish, Italian, and Spanish.

In other languages, the correspondence is less consistent. English is one such language. Consider the letter sequence "ough." How should that be pronounced? It depends on whether it's part of the word "cough," "through," "although," or "plough." In these languages, there are more multi-letter sound units, more context-depenent rules and more out and out quirks.

Another factor is syllabic structure. Syllables in languages with simple structures typically (or exclusively) have the form CV (i.e., a consonant, then a vowel as in "ba") or VC (as in "ab.") Slightly more complex forms include CVC ("bat") and CCV ("pla"). As the number of permissible combinations of vowels and consonants that may form a single syllable increases, so does the complexity. In English, it's not uncommon to see forms like CCCVCC (.e.g., "splint.")

Here's a figure (Seymour et al., 2003) showing the relative orthographic depth of 13 languages, as well as the complexity of their syllabic structure.

Picture
From Seymour et al (2003)
Orthographic depth correlates with incidence of dyslexia (e.g., Wolf et al, 1994) and with word and nonword reading in typically developing children (Seymour et al. 2003). Syllabic complexity correlates with word decoding (Seymour et al, 2003).

This highlights two points, in my mind.

First, when people trumpet the fact that Finland doesn't begin reading instruction until age 7 we should bear in mind that the task confronting Finnish children is easier than that confronting English-speaking children. The late start might be just fine for Finnish children; it's not obvious it would work well for English-speakers.

Of course, a shallow orthography doesn't guarantee excellent reading performance, at least as measured by the PIRLS. Children in Greece, Italy, and Spain had mediocre scores, on average. Good instruction is obviously still important.

But good instruction is more difficult in languages with deep orthography, and that's the second point. The conclusion from the PIRLS should not just be "Early elementary teachers in the US are doing a good job with reading." It should be "Early elementary teachers in the US are doing a good job with reading despite teaching reading in a language that is difficult to learn."


References

Seymour, P. H. K., Aro, M., & Erskine, J. M. (2003). Foundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies. British Journal of Psychology, 94, 143-174.

Wolf, M., Pfeil, C., Lotz, R., & Biddle, K. (1994). Towarsd a more universal understanding of the developmental dyslexias: The contribution of orthographic factors. In Berninger, V. W. (Ed), The varieties of orthographic knowledge, 1: Theoretical and developmental issues.Neuropsychology and cognition, Vol. 8., (pp. 137-171). New York, NY, US: Kluwer
Tim Holm
12/17/2012 03:56:33 am

I'm a Russian major and a teacher of English and I've *never* considered this aspect of English language instruction when comparing performance with other nations. Thank you for the insight!

I'll be sure to congratulate my ESL kiddos before we start our final today.

Stuart Buck
12/17/2012 04:53:53 am

"Ough" -- there is also the "uff" sound in "tough," and even the "up" sound in "hiccough."

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1/9/2013 12:03:29 am

You make that sound real funny.

Gary Logue
12/17/2012 05:41:17 am

Besides orthography and syllabic structure, what are some other indicators of the complexity of a language? Finnish is considered to be a difficult language to learn (for English speakers) in spite of the simplicity of its orthography.

EB
12/18/2012 01:21:22 am

Finnish orthography and syllabic structure are more consistent (and syllables are shorter), but for English speakers the vowel variations are difficult, the sheer number of syllables that common words can have is strange, and intonation is different. These make it hard to learn to speak Finnish, but once those issues are mastered I don't think it's especially hard to learn to read or write Finnish.

don hirsch
12/17/2012 01:35:07 pm

Dan, the US reading results have also been going up on the NAEP tests -- for 4th grade. As you know, this has not translated into improvements 4 years later on the 8th-grade scores, and then on 12th grade ones -- either on NAEP or on the international PISA tests. One hypothesis for this anomaly that is worth considering is that the sharp focus on testing under NCLB has managed to raise decoding abilities, while the reading-as-skill approach has at the same time caused a neglect of general knowledge, which accounts for poor comprehension abilities later on. Torgesen and his colleagues have pointed out that 4th-grade reading tests probe decoding relatively more than comprehension, and that later tests -- grades 8-12 chiefly probe comprehension more. So the rise in decoding -- the way it is achieved now, with great neglect of general knowledge -- comes at a price. No reason why scores can't go up at every level, if this explanation of the anomaly is taken to heart. The test-focus of NCLB was a mixed blessing because of the how-to approach to BOTH decoding and comprehension -- but has been much more successful with decoding.

Duane Richarsd
1/10/2013 01:49:40 am

As a fourth grade teacher in Florida, I can tell you that almost ALL of our test is based on reading application and NOT decoding. In fact, I believe the test requires many students to synthesize information in a way in which many are not devepmentally ready.

Mike Thayer link
12/18/2012 05:32:23 am

I have also heard much about the difficulty of Finnish grammar (compared to English), as opposed to orthography or pronunciation. is there any way to tease out these potentially conflated effects? Finnish may be a (relatively) easy language to learn to pronounce correctly, compared to English, but in terms of learning to comprehend written text, how does it compare? Is there any data on that?

Harold
12/26/2012 04:19:35 am

Nordic countries in general start academics (reading) later, including Germany and Denmark, which have relatively difficult orthography compared to Finland, according to the charts given here. The exception is Iceland, which has an extremely complex orthographic system, and does start at reading at six, lending some support to the theory that there is (or should be) a correlation between levels orthographic difficulty and earliness or lateness of starting reading instruction.

However, I agree with the posters above who have pointed out that reading is not the same as decoding. A strong preschool program like Finland's provides a head start in conversation (and therefore linguistic competence and general knowledge) and even more importantly, social skills and awareness of the needs of other, which facilitates the ability to accept instruction. Finland really emphasizes reading. It publishes the most children's books per capita of any country. Moreover, they encourage students to develop the habit of reading for pleasure outside of school, a habit which at least one study found has a higher correlation with later success in life than any other factor. They also emphasize music and foreign languages of necessity since few other countries know Finnish. All this is beneficial to literacy, since knowing other languages is key in understanding your own and tremendously expands and enriches a person's vocabulary.

Alyson link
12/28/2012 09:22:53 am

Great article!!!! I homeschool my kids, and all except my 6-year-old with Down syndrome start simple sight reading at age 3. They stay at the word family reading stage for about a year with very little pressure, but a lot of practice. Then they take off.

They are strong readers by the time they start kindergarten because they've had two solid years of what I would call easy reading.

There are many in the homeschooling community who advocate not teaching kids, especially boys, how to read until age 7 or 8, even many who say boys are not really ready to learn to read until then. Obviously I disagree.

When my daughter went to public school for 2 years, her kindergarten teacher was flustered that she could already read. She was sent to the library for independent reading time while the rest of the class worked on the basics. In first grade, she was given the second grade books to start on until the second grade teachers caught wind of what was going on and locked their cabinets, saying, "What are we going to do with her when she gets to second grade?" Then a school counselor told me not to worry about it because although some kids really lead the pack in early elementary, by fifth grade it all evens out and most of the early leaders have fallen back to the level everybody else is on. I think that was meant to satisfy me, but it just made me want to get out of the public school system as fast as I could.

Homeschooling, anyone?

I'd love for it to be standard for kids to be able to read at least three-letter words by kindergarten. It would make it so much easier on the teachers, and the kids could accomplish so much in their kindergarten year if they already had that good foundation.

I don't know what they are doing in preschools these days, but between family and preschool (whether homeschooled or outsourced), we ought to be able to pull this off.

Thanks for a great article.

Alyson


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