Pedagogical importance of reading literacy. A comparative study on PISA

Abstract

Reading, as complex cognitive activity, has become the focus of numerous national and international studies from a comparative perspective. This research analyses the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) over the last few years due to, according to the results, the low performance presented by Spanish students in reading skills. This low result is shown in the different stages analysed and it is even worse if it is considered the 2006 and 2018 reports since in those years worst results were achieved (461 and 477 points respectively). In order to do this, different factors that have an influence on reading skills are analysed. It is done a comparative and longitudinal research from 2000 to 2018 that considers all the results provided by OECD. With that data in mind and the purpose of understanding them and contextualize those factors that could rise to them, other elements are studied, such as the presence of the reading skills in the Spanish legislation, the investment made in Secondary Education, the rate of students who finish Compulsory Secondary School, as well as the evolution that school libraries have had in terms of number, uses or the participation of families and the environment in them. These aspects are analysed in a way that is compared with the reading performance obtained throughout the PISA studies. Finally, the approach of the PISA reports justifies its use as a reference for a qualitative and global understanding of the aspects that interfere with appropriate reading skills in fifteen-year-old students. This goes beyond numerical results.

Keywords

• academic achievement
• reading literacy
• reading
• reading comprehension
• the PISA technical report