Teacher Strategies to Help Fourth-Graders Having Difficulty in Reading: In International Perspective. Statistics in Brief

摘要

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), a study conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), assesses the reading achievement of fourth-graders. Most recently, PIRLS 2006 analyzed nationally representative samples of fourth-graders in the United States and 44 other jurisdictions. While scores on this assessment offer insight into how U.S. students compare to their international counterparts in reading, it is also useful to understand the context in which students learn and the current practices used in classroom instruction. To gain a better understanding of such contextual features, PIRLS also collects background information from students, teachers, and principals on a variety of topics. This Statistics in Brief focuses on one particular aspect of reading instruction within the participating PIRLS 2006 jurisdictions; it attempts to describe international patterns and variation in the strategies reported by teachers to help fourth-grade students having difficulty in reading. This report uses data collected from the PIRLS 2006 teacher background questionnaire. Teachers were asked, What do you usually do if a student begins to fall behind in reading. Teachers could respond yes or no to one or more of the following: (1) I wait to see if performance improves with maturation; (2) I spend more time working on reading individually with that student; (3) I have other students work on reading with the student having difficulty; (4) I have the student work in the regular classroom with a teacher-aide; (5) I have the student work in the regular classroom with a reading specialist; (6) I have the student work in a remedial reading classroom with a reading specialist; (7) I assign homework to help the student catch up; or (8) I ask the parents to help the student with reading.