Hong Kong students ranked second among 45 jurisdictions participating in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2006, just one point behind Russian pupils who topped the list.

Welcoming the results, Deputy Secretary for Education Bernadette Linn today said Hong Kong students' performance has improved significantly, up from 14th place in the study conducted in 2001.

Ms Linn said this is great encouragement to teachers, principals and other education professionals who have been making unrelenting efforts in implementing the education and curriculum reforms. 

"The success should be attributed to the efforts made by schools and teachers. They have taken up the new Chinese-language curriculum, used quality assessment data, and engaged in targeted professional development. All education professionals know the importance of reading for better learning," she said.

Detailed findings

The study is administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement in a five-year cycle to assess the reading literacy of students aged 9 to 10 in the fourth grade.

The Education Faculty of the University of Hong Kong was commissioned to study Hong Kong's performance. More than 4,700 primary four students and their parents as well as teachers and principals from 144 primary schools participated.

Hong Kong students' overall mean score was 564, just one point less than Russian pupils'. They did particularly well in reading for informational purposes, scoring 568 points, the highest among all participating countries/regions.

They also performed the best among the participating countries/regions in the high-level reading comprehension processes, scoring 566 points. This suggests they are good at interpreting, integrating and evaluating.

A greater percentage of our students have reached the high and advanced levels of the international benchmark. In particular, the number of those reaching the advanced level has increased three-fold - from 5% in 2001 to 15% in 2006.

As compared to the results in 2001, there has been a significant rise in the percentages of schools having informal initiatives to encourage students to read and conducting formal instruction of reading.

About 52% of schools had guidelines on how to coordinate reading instruction across teachers; 62% had school-based programs for teachers to improve reading instruction; 66% had a clear reading curriculum; and 100% had introduced informal initiatives to encourage students to read. There was also a comparatively wider range of reading materials used in reading lessons.

Reading habits

Hong Kong students' reading habits have improved in the past few years. Their reading attitude has shown positive changes and reading self-concept has improved significantly.

A significant rise was seen in the time students spent on reading and in the frequency of their borrowing books from the library. About 76% students read stories or novels at leisure time at least once or twice a week while 83% went to school or public libraries at least once or twice a week.

The study also showed there was a rise in parents engaging their children in reading activities such as telling stories and visiting the library. There was also improvement in home educational resources, such as the increasing number of books at home. All these helped to provide a favourable reading environment.

The Education Bureau said it will continue to work closely with schools, parents, tertiary institutions and the community to sustain students' good performance. It would also consider ways to promote and support reading.