Abstract:

Since 2007, education in primary schools in the Czech Republic has been governed by a two-tier curriculum. The Framework educational programme for elementary education is the state level curriculum and is binding for all educational institutions of the respective level of education. Regarding the fact that this is a framework document, the specification and focus is defined by each school in the school educational programme. Some schools increase their curriculum by means of disposable lessons to include topics that require more attention. One of these areas is reading literacy, because in the curricular document this topic is included only marginally. In 2018-2019 a research study was performed at the Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc which focused on children in grade three, i.e. learners with some reading experience. An achievement test was used to examine reading comprehension at all levels of obtaining, interpreting and assessing information. This was a quantitative study comparing primary school classes focused on reading and standard classes with no extra reading lessons. The results of the research suggested that there was no substantial difference between the level of reading literacy in classes with standard reading lessons and classes with extra reading lessons. This was surprising, but at the same time explicable. The research was also supported by a qualitative survey including interviews with teachers focusing on the development of reading skills.

Keywords:

Primary school, child, PIRLS, reading literacy, educational research, quantitative research, achievement test, curriculum, qualitative research.