Reading instruction and its development according to the PISA study: Conceptions and practices within the strained relationship between competency orientation and enculturation

Abstract

In the wake of PISA, a growing understanding of reading competence that breaks reading down into measurable partial competencies can be observed. This understanding is based on a cognitive theoretical model of the reading process, which conceptualises reading as a social ability to act and relates it to everyday situations of application. Intelligible as this understanding might be for compar ative performance measurement in particular, it is nonetheless problematic for contemporary reading instruction. To begin with, it eclipses emotional and motivational aspects that are crucial from the perspective of the acquisition of reading. In addition, it stands in direct opposition to educational traditions which ascribe significance to literary reading. Reading research gives numerous indications that reading instruction on Secondary I Level should be arranged as an interplay of reading training, reading promotion, and literary reading; whereby school praxis relies on reliable findings regarding the respective efficacy of each of these three elements.