Do you think that makes reading pedagogy harder or easier?

I think it makes learning to read easier because not 100% of their grade is based on how well they learned to read English, which is a terrible language for reading.

Grades have nothing to do with PISA scores.

PISA score is a form of grading, is it not?

I'm sure it doesn't just compare English proficiency between countries because some countries don't speak English at all and still get PISA score.

> PISA score is a form of grading, is it not?

No, it's an independent test. You can completely "fail" the PISA and it'll have no impact on your matriculation.

> I'm sure it doesn't just compare English proficiency between countries because some countries don't speak English at all and still get PISA score.

Correct. Students take the PISA in their native language. Only the most sparsely populated provinces in Canada did worse [0] than the UK [1] in 2018.

[0]: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/what-int...

[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f20293fd3bf7...

> > PISA score is a form of grading, is it not? > No, it's an independent test.

I'm sorry. I'm not a native speaker. Does the word "grading" pertain to only tests that are a part of school curriculum? I thought it could mean assigning a score to any test, even independent, even not related to education at all.

> Correct. Students take the PISA in their native language.

Right. So assuming that scores of the students are averaged out together across all test takers in the country and some of them learned to read French rather than English they might skew the average. So comparing scores of Canada and UK for the purposes of comparing how well English learning goes in those two countries might not be valid approach.

We should be comparing UK with sub-population of Canadian students that took the test in English. Not sure if PISA provides such data.

I probably can't object to comparing UK and Ireland on that grounds. Or do some students take PISA tests in Irish there?

The first link I posted does what you're asking; the only non English province is Quebec.

Thank you. From what I see Quebec is insignificantly below the average of the whole country. So my idea about high score being explained by Canadians speaking French and pulling the score up is just wrong. There must be something they are doing well when it comes to teaching English reading. And very well even since they globally score very high. Google AI summary (not sure if it can be trusted) says they made a move towards phonics, due to ineffectiveness of contextual guessing.