The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many different changes in education. Outcomes of education have also been affected. IEA’s PIRLS2021 was the first of the large-scale international studies of education that measured 4th-graders’ reading literacy during and right after the pandemic. The results have brought surprises for many countries, for example, when compared with PIRLS2016, Finland has lost 17 score points (19 points since PIRLS2011) and there is also a decrease in average achievement scores for Latvia – a drop by 30 points since PIRLS2016. Some countries were not affected, for example, Ireland had gained 10 points since PIRLS2016 and 25 points since PIRLS2011; Lithuanian average achievement score had risen by 4 points since PIRLS2016 and 24 points since PIRLS2011 (Mullis et al., 2023). These four countries were selected for comparison because of their achievement characteristics – Finland was the top-performing EU country in PIRLS2011, and together with Ireland the top-performing countries from the EU in the PIRLS2016. In PIRLS2021 the roles in the international ranking table have changed - Ireland still being the first among EU countries, Latvia being the country with the largest achievement drop, Lithuania rising its achievement to the top 5 among EU countries, but Finland falling behind Lithuania.

The purpose of this study is to find out students’ personal, classroom, and home characteristics that differ between high and low-achieving students in all countries of comparison.

Previous studies have examined that student’s socioeconomic status (Eriksson et al., 2021; OECD, 2020a; Mullis et al., 2023) and intelligence (Roth et al., 2015; Kriegbaum et al., 2018) are the main factors influencing student’s achievement. Among the significant factors explaining achievement distribution often falls motivation (Mullis et al., 2023; Kriegbaum et al., 2018), attitude (Mullis et al., 2023), and confidence in reading or reading self-concept (Geske et al., 2021). It is common to address gender issues when researching reading achievement. There have been studies that claim that the gender gap in reading performance is present already upon students’ entry to school (Ferrer et al., 2015; Mesite, 2019). PIRLS and PISA studies provide evidence that girls outperform boys in reading in the majority of participating countries (OECD, 2020b; Mullis et al., 2023). At the same time – the gender effect on reading disabilities is questionable – some researchers conclude that males are more often diagnosed with reading disabilities (Berninger et al., 2008), but others argue that there are no differences (Shaywitz et al., 1990) or that females are just underdiagnosed (Limbrick et al., 2008; Quinn & Wagner, 2015).

Although PIRLS does not measure students’ intelligence or disabilities, other factors such as students’ personal, school, classroom, and home characteristics can be compared. The authors of this study compared the discrete values of following PIRLS2021 scales (Mullis et al., 2023):

- students’ sense of school belonging, bullying, engagement in reading lessons, and, disorderly behaviours in reading lessons as classroom factors, 

- students like reading, students are confident in reading and performance in early literacy tasks as personal factors, and

- home resources for learning, socio-economic status, and parents like reading as students’ home factors.

The results of comparison showed the important role of the language students speak at home every day and their preschool education quality. On average only less than 2% of students who did not speak the language of test at home could perform at the advanced level. More than 90% of students in Ireland who performed at the advanced level before entering school recognized most letters in the alphabet very well, almost 60% of students could read a story and approximately 70% of students could write other words than their name.

In this analysis all students were partitioned into the following groups according to PIRLS2021 reading assessment test results: advanced students (625 achievement points and above), and low-achievers (400 achievement points or less) as defined in PIRLS2021 methods and procedures (Wry et al., 2023). The following scales were used (Mullis et al., 2023) to compare percentages of low and high-achieving students: - Students Like Reading – 10-item scale that measures students’ motivation. The scale was split into three levels: “Very much like reading”, “Somewhat like reading” and “Do not like reading”; - Students Confident in Reading – 6-item scale that measures a student's distinct view of his/her reading ability. The scale was partitioned into three confidence levels: “Very confident”, “Somewhat confident” and “Not confident”; - “Could Do Early Literacy Tasks When Beginning Primary School” scale – 6-item scale that indicates quality of kindergarten and early education. The scale was broken down into three proficiency levels: “Very well”, “Moderately well” and “Not well”; - “Sense of School Belonging” scale – 5-item scale that measures levels of students’ connectedness with their school. The scale was partitioned into three levels of belonging: “High sense of school belonging”, “Some sense of school belonging” and “Little sense of school belonging”; - “Students Engaged in Reading Lessons” scale – 9-item scale that measures students’ interaction with learning content. The scale was partitioned into three engagement levels: “Very engaged”, “Somewhat engaged”, “Less than engaged”; - “Disorderly Behaviour During Reading Lessons” scale – 5-item scale that measures students’ behaviours in reading lessons and teacher’s classroom management. The scale was split into three engagement levels: “Few or no lessons”, “Some lessons”, “Most of the lessons”; - “Student Bullying” scale – 10-item scale that measures repeated aggressive behaviours towards students from classmates. The scale was broken down into three bullying frequencies: “Never or almost never”, “About monthly”, “About weekly”; - “Parents Like reading” – 9-item scale that measures parents as being role models for their children. Values were partitioned into three levels – “Very much like reading”, “Somewhat like reading” and “Do not like reading”; All scales except the bullying scale were created from students’ and parents’ answers given in a 4-level Likert scale ranging from “Agree a lot” to “Disagree a lot”. The items in the bullying scale were presented in a 4-level frequency scale: “Never”, “A few times a year”, Once or twice a month”, “At least once a week”.

In all countries of comparison some traits were common. Analysis of students’ classroom factors has shown that all countries of comparison share: - three (in Latvia, Lithuania) to six (Finland, Ireland) times more low-achieving students than advanced that had little sense of school belonging; - approximately 1.5 (Ireland) to 5 (Latvia) times more low-achievers than advanced that were minimally engaged in reading lessons; - approximately two (Finland) to six (Ireland) times more low-achieving students than advanced that reported their classmates had disorderly behaviour during most reading lessons; - 12 (Ireland) up to 28 (Finland) times more low-achievers that were bullied about weekly; Analysis of students’ personal factors have shown that although both groups share very similar distribution in “Students like reading” scale, it can be noted that more than 50% low-performing students (51% in Finland, 65% in Ireland, 67% in Latvia, and 73% in Lithuania) were not confident in their reading skills compared with less than 5% (1% in Finland, 2% in Ireland, 4% in Latvia, and 2% in Lithuania) advanced students who also were not confident in reading. More than 55% of advanced students entered school with early literacy skills (57% in Finland, 81% in Ireland, 77% in Latvia, and 65% in Lithuania) whereas less than 15% of low-performing students could demonstrate the same abilities (15% in Latvia, 13% in Ireland, 3% in Finland, and 0% in Lithuania). Analysis of students’ home factors has shown that more than 30% (38% in Latvia, 53% in Lithuania, 55% in Ireland, and 57% in Finland) parents of advanced students like reading whereas more than 30% of low performing students’ parents do not like reading. Thus, this study supports the body of research emphasizing the importance of preschool educational quality, family engagement and students' well-being at school.

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