The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is a research study that provides both trend and snapshot information on the reading literacy of New Zealand's Year 5 students in both the International and national contexts. PIRLS-2010/2011 was the third cycle of the study to be administered.
Methodology
Each student was given a booklet that contained either two literary (story) texts, two information texts, or one of each. There were five different literary texts and five different information texts so that students did not all have the same material. Each passage (story or information text) was followed by a series of questions that were designed to assess the student’s reading comprehension. Some questions were closed (i.e., students selected an answer from those provided) and some questions were open (i.e., students had to write their own response to the question with some questions requiring one or two sentences using examples from the texts to explain their answers).