PIRLS                                                                                                                                                                    

• 96% of 4th-graders achieved above the international benchmark {UN News Centre}
• The world's most advanced 4th-graders {Quartz}
• Ten considerations for interpreting results {BBC}

PIRLS                                                                                                                                                                     

• In early grades, there is too much emphasis on chorusing and rote repetition {Business Day}
• Three reading interventions and their results, including specialist reading coaches helping close the gender gap {Business Day}
• Students should be instructed in their native language until grade 6 {PoliticsWeb}

• Few schools have "laser beam" focus on standards; they might have positively impacted ePIRLS results {Education Dive}
• U.S. performance declines with Common Core {The Federalist}

• PIRLS results confirm efficacy of phonics initiatives {The Telegraph}
• Phonics did not lead to better PIRLS results {Schools Week}

PIRLS                                                                                                                                                                      

• Singapore - Most students at the top proficiency level {Asian Correspondent}
• Hong Kong - Parents' reading interests and educational resources at home not improving {South China Morning Post}
• Hong Kong - Little difference between using Mandarin vs. Cantonese {Hong Kong Free Press}
• Ireland - Best in Europe, with more students at the top and smaller gender disparity {RTE}
• Northern Ireland - Ranked 6th overall, above England at 10th {BBC}
• United Kingdom - Positive trend results {Tes}
• United States - Students bucking trend of PIRLS improvement {Education Week}
• United States - Great Recession budget cuts and family poverty might have led to results {The Washington Post}
• United States - Musings on race and ethnicity, the role of culture, and spending {Cato Institute}
• United States - Stagnation on assessments {The Hechinger Report}   
• Australia - Digging into the student and teacher questionnaires {Teacher Magazine}
• New Zealand - Student scores plummet; biggest drops seen for students of European descent and high-SES students {Otago Daily Times}
• Dubai - Significant improvement in average score {Gulf News}
• France - Unsatisfactory results; instating a dictation a day {The Telegraph} 
• Malta - Lowest average score in Europe, and the issue of bilingual education {Malta Today}
• Bahrain - "Distinguished results" and best female performance of Arab nations {Bahrain News Agency}
• Morocco - Ranked low but saw 48-point improvement from '11 to '16 {Yabiladi}

PISA                                                                                                                                                                              

• Australia - The clues that could explain falling PISA marks {The Sydney Morning Herald}
• Canada, China, United States - Bribing students {Financial Post}
• International - Collaborative problem solving: Why might girls have an edge? {DailyO}
• International - Workplace implications of collaborative problem-solving gender results {Digital Journal}
• Singapore - The importance of helping disadvantaged students {The Straits Times}