The Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA) this year introduced the electronic version 

of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

 

This project, known as Epirls, aims to compare online reading to paper-based reading. In November 2015, after two years of preparation, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016, which is run under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), went into the field in 500 classrooms around South Africa. The PIRLS assesses reading comprehension and has been monitoring trends in learner reading achievement at five-year intervals since 2001. The CEA was the National Coordinating Centre for South Africa for the 2006 and 2011 studies and will also coordinate the 2016 study.

 

PIRLS assesses reading comprehension at the Grade 4 level in more than 60 countries and sets international benchmarks for reading comprehension. In PIRLS 2016, the IEA introduced an easier version of the reading assessment, namely PIRLS Literacy. South Africa is participating in the PIRLS Literacy for Grade 4 learners in all 11 languages, and in the more difficult PIRLS at the Grade 5 level. Learners completing ePIRLS assessment are assessed at the Grade 5 level.

 

A further innovation with regard to PIRLS 2016 is ePIRLS, which is an assessment of online reading that makes it possible for countries to understand how successful they are in preparing Grade 4 learners to read, comprehend and interpret digital information. The electronic assessment presents learners with authentic school-like assignments on science, literature and social studies topics, which align with purposes for school reading. In South Africa, given the extent, logistics and expense of PIRLS and PIRLS Literacy, an exploratory study of ePIRLS is being conducted in conjunction with PIRLS. A total of 13 schools in Gauteng that use ICT were selected, and one class of Grade 5 learners was assessed using both PIRLS (paper-based) and ePIRLS (electronic) instruments. This means that Grade 5 online reading comprehension can be compared to paper reading comprehension for a limited sample of schools.

 

The final data will be collected in April 2016 and the South African and international results for the PIRLS, PIRLS Literacy and ePIRLS will be released at national and international press conferences in December 2017.