The study examines the reading attitudes and attainment of Hong Kong, Singapore and English primary-school students using data collected in the PIRLS 2001 international reading survey. The results shows that reading attitudes and confidence tend to be significantly related to reading achievement test scores. The results also support the view that English pupils, generally speaking, do well on reading tests, both at 'reading for literary purposes' and at 'reading to acquire and use information' . There is also a clear relationship between gender and achievement. The findings support the view that girls' reading attitudes and achievement are generally better than those of boys at the age levels examined.
[Copyright of Research in Education is the property of Manchester University Press.]

The cultural capital in families, more specifically, the educational level of parents, has during the last decades been shown to be the most important dimension of socioeconomic influence on school performance in many countries. Less is known about the factors that actually mediate this influence. The aim, therefore, is to investigate the relative importance of various mediating factors, as well as the total effects of parents' educational levels, on the reading achievement levels of children in Grade 4. Data in this comparative analysis come from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001 and include representative samples from 7 countries: Sweden, Norway, Bulgaria, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, and Italy. Variables indicating possession of cultural capital in the families are collected from the home questionnaire. A total achievement score is used as outcome variable. The effects of parents' education on reading achievement are estimated with structural equation modelling. Substantial effects of parental education were found, but the pathways for indirect effects that were mediated through other variables varied between countries.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803610802576742]