Page 10 - Handbook for reluctant, struggling and poor readers

Main components of the Case Study derive from two project activities (O1.A1 & O2.A2.) carried out from
October 2016 to April 2018, as well as from the partners reports on Critical Review and State of the Art
within their country.

1. CRITICAL REVIEW AND STATE OF THE ART

CROATIA

In the context of education, three literacy: reading, science and mathematics stand in the center of PISA
research interests. The cycle of PISA 2015 was the sixth cycle of research and for the fourth time involving
Republic of Croatia encompassing 5809 15-year-old respondents. In the field of reading literacy, the
st
Republic of Croatia achieved below the average score of 487 points (31 place). By comparing the average
results from reading literacy with the results of PISA 2009 cycle in Croatia, the trend of improvement of
average results is noticed. In the six-year period, Croatia has increased the average score by 11 points.
In the PIRLS Survey, evaluating readership competences for ten years, Croatia participated in 2011. The
results of Croatian students are significantly better than the results achieved in PISA research. But when
it comes to reading, Croatia is in the foreground. In Croatia, only 17% of students love to read, 53% like it
somehow, and 29% do not like reading. Of the 57 surveyed countries, Croatia has the largest percentage
of children who do not like to read.
The relation of young people towards reading is largely determined by their school-based reading
experiences. Unfortunately, school institutions of today does not perceive them as " “digital natives”
(Prensky, 2001) growing up in the world of digital media where the image (rather than the word) often
contains the basic meaning and is its frequent transferee.
In order to mediate the reading of all students aged 15-18 in Croatian schools, a mandatory corpus of
literary texts is selected according to the criterion of importance and value within history of European
(World) and National literature. This was determined in the mid-90s of the last century. The selected corpus
of literary works by their contemporariness ends in the 1990s. For a large number of students, especially
those who have defined themselves as RSP readers, these texts represent a serious problem with regard
to their complexity. Reception of the texts is expected from all of the students during school interpretation
and analysis. The problem begins allready at the level of basic understanding during independent reading,
after which pupils are expected to collect and structure the information about text with regard to literary
theory and history of literature.
The Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted the National Strategy for Reading (2015 - 2020) by
following the proposal of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, with the aim of updating the
problems and unification of various factors in society that deal with reading problems in one way or another.
In addition to the shorter programmes of teacher education at the level of individual counties, The
Education and Teacher Training Agency organized IV. a symposium of teachers and teachers of Croatian
language who was entirely dedicated to the reading entitled "Reading for School and Life".
Based on available information on reading promotion programs, it can be concluded that a large number
of programs related to the promotion of reading are offered and implemented in Croatia. Motivated
teachers and students who, in most cases have good developed reading skills and higher or high
motivation to read are participating these programmes.
Unfortunately, the students we describe as reluctant, struggling and poor readers often remain outside
those programmes.

SLOVAKIA

According to the PISA 2015 study Slovakia achieved 453 points in reading literacy; the average of the
OECD countries was 493 points. As in all previous cycles, even in PISA 2015, the performance of Slovak
pupils in reading literacy is below the average of the OECD participating countries. Compared to 2012, our
pupils' average performance dropped by 10, which is not a significant change. There is a comparable
number of our students in the PISA 2015 risk group (32.1%) to the 2012 cycle (28.2%). These pupils do
not have even the most basic reading skills necessary for further education. Most pupils in the risk group
are located in secondary vocational schools and elementary schools. Even in 4-year grammar schools,
the proportion of pupils in the risk group has increased statistically significantly compared to the both