READING LITERACY OF UKRAINIAN PUPILS: HIGHLIGHTS OF PISA-2018

Abstract

In the article the author analyzes the key problems of quality and monitoring of education in Ukraine. Monitoring is seen as one of the modern mechanisms for ensuring the quality of education. The PISA-2018 international monitoring program is considered by the author as an opportunity to make a real assessment of the results of Ukrainian pupils in comparison with the achievements of peers from other countries. Monitoring helps to define the strategy of changes in educational policy, brings the quality of education closer to world standards. Based on the monitoring studies, the development of the country’s education in the process of integration into the world educational space is projected. The article identifies PISA’s objectives for Ukraine. The choice of such areas for monitoring the quality of education as reading, mathematics, and natural sciences is substantiated. In the article the author focuses her attention on such areas as readers’ literacy. The state of research of problems of quality of education and monitoring by foreign and domestic scientists is analyzed. The main part of the article reveals the purpose of reading, its main characteristics, requirements for this type of speech activity. The focus is on the features of reading in a digital society. In view of this, the school’s mission has been clarified. Among other things, the author outlines the categorical apparatus of literacy, traces the evolution of literacy and the emergence of new concepts related to literacy, draws readers’ attention to the differences between the terminology of PISA-2018 and terminology in circulation in Ukrainian science. The author proposes the problem of polysemiotics of the global educational space for separate consideration. The texts, test tasks and results of their fulfillment by Ukrainian students are analyzed. Factors of influence on the quality of formation and display of skills that determine the level of reading literacy have been clarified. The conclusions drawn from the monitoring materials are formulated and recommendations are given to improve students’ reading competence.