What Makes a Good Fourth-Grade Reader? Knowledge.

What makes for effective reading instruction? A new study indicates that an important contributor is integrating material from other subjects into reading instruction.
An important international comparison test for reading is the PIRLS, administered to ten-year-olds. Hong Kong ranked 14th among 35 participating countries in the 2001 administration of the test. In 2006, Hong Kong students ranked second among 44 nations. This improvement coincided with significant changes to the reading curriculum instituted by the Curriculum Development Council of the Hong Kong government. These two changes spurred a group of researchers at the University of Hong Kong to analyze the data from the 2006 PIRLS to determine which instructional factors were associated with student reading achievement. >>>