An international study of reading literacy among fourth graders
has found that students in the United States scored above the
average for the 40 nations covered but trailed their
counterparts in a dozen nations and several Canadian provinces.
The study, released this morning, also found that in all of the
nations surveyed, girls outscored boys, and fewer children
reported deriving enjoyment from reading than was the case when
the international assessments were last given, five years
earlier. The study was conducted by researchers at Boston
College on behalf of the International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Each of the 40 nations
involved in the study evaluated about 4,000 students in 150
schools, with those in the Southern Hemisphere beginning their
data collection in October 2005 and those in the Northern
Hemisphere beginning in March 2006. The highest scores were
posted by Russia, followed by Hong Kong, the Canadian province
of Alberta, and Singapore. The other nations posting