PIRLS 2021 encyclopedia: education policy and curriculum in reading

The PIRLS 2021 Encyclopedia: Education Policy and Curriculum in Reading presents a profile of reading and language instruction in PIRLS 2021 countries and benchmarking systems. Representatives from each country and benchmarking participant completed the PIRLS 2021 curriculum questionnaire and prepared a chapter describing the country’s education system and reading curriculum, as well as the educational challenges and innovations arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, the curriculum questionnaire data and country chapters present a concise yet rich portrait of reading education around the world. The PIRLS 2021 countries differ from one another in fundamental ways, including their education systems, and these differences are important to acknowledge when interpreting the PIRLS achievement results. The PIRLS 2021 Encyclopedia provides information about these differences and serves as a more qualitative companion to the PIRLS 2021 student achievement results. For PIRLS 2021, the Encyclopedia also includes information about the COVID-19 pandemic across countries. This important contextual information can be used by researchers, policymakers, and educators in conjunction with the PIRLS 2021 achievement results to inform education policy and curricula around the world.