Reading literacy is an important foundation for educational achievement, social participation, and professional life. Digitalization is expanding to a considerable extent the reading opportunities that students have in their everyday lives, but also in the school context. The use of digital media is considered to have a wide range of potential benefits for learning. Nevertheless, research does not consistently point out positive effects of digital tools and e.g. has shown that digital reading, at least during leisure time, does not necessarily add to reading comprehension (Altamura et al., 2023). Other studies indicated a negative relation of the amount of daily use of digital devices with reading comprehension that could be compensated by a supportive use by the teachers within digital reading projects (Salmerón et al., 2022). Overall, international large-scale assessments show that in some countries more digital reading time in school is associated with higher reading literacy. In some education systems, however, a negative correlation is found (Lorenz et al., 2023). Furthermore, there is an ongoing discussion about the use of digital media for reading instruction and how it`s use differs between students with different socio-economic backgrounds. This discussion is driven from findings of particularly large learning deficits among children from low socio-economic backgrounds while learning digitally during the COVID-19 pandemic and on country level a larger gap between middle-income countries relative to high-income countries (Betthäuser et al., 2022). This leads to the question on digitization for school purposes in an international comparison: What relation of digital schoolwork with reading literacy can be found in fourth grade across European countries? Results indicate an overall positive association of the amount of digital schoolwork (finding and reading information; preparing reports and presentations) and reading literacy at the country level for all considered European countries in PIRLS 2021. Regional differences are that Northern European countries have both a higher level of digital reading for schoolwork and reading literacy, whereas Western European countries have a lower level of digital reading along with lower reading literacy. A multi-group two level model with cross-level interaction revealed effects at the class level, primarily in Eastern and Southern European countries. However, no effects at any level remain statistically significant after controlling for socioeconomic background and spoken language at home (other than test language). Results show no evidence in support of a negative association between digital schoolwork and reading literacy. Inequality between European regions will be discussed.

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