What is reading literacy?
Reading literacy is defined by the OECD as the ability
"to understand, use and reflect on written texts in order to achieve ones goals, to develop one's knowledge and potential, and to participate effectively in society."
(Knowledge and Skills for Life: First Results from PISA 2000. OECD, p. 21)
(http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/44/53/33691596.pdf)
The PISA conceptual framework differentiates between three aspects within the domain of reading which are of central importance for understanding texts:
- The format of reading materials or texts
PISA goes far beyond the conception of previous reading tests and uses a broad range of different texts in its tasks:
- Prose texts/continuous texts (narration, exposition, argumentation..), and
- Non-continuous/discontinuous texts (forms, instructions, graphs, maps)
- The type of reading task
PISA does not aim to survey aspects such as reading speed but rather examines the extent to which young people are capable of understanding and evaluating texts which they encounter in everyday life. PISA thereby differentiates between the following dimensions:
- Retrieving information from a text
- Forming a broad general understanding of a text
- Developing a text-based interpretation
- Reflecting on and evaluating the content of a text
- Reflecting on and evaluating the form of a text
- Situations and contexts
In order to increase the variety of texts, PISA includes texts from many different situations - private (e.g. novels), public (e.g. official documents), occupational (e.g. manuals) and educational (e.g. textbooks).
Sample items can be found here.
