Dubai: Schools that were on mid-term break for the first semester will resume their studies today, coinciding with a direct international event. On the same day, the main application period for the international study to measure progress in reading skills, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2026 begins and continues until November 12, according to the approved academic calendar for government and private schools that apply the Ministry of Education curriculum.

The timing of the start of the international study with the return of students from the short break gives the first days of study twice the educational and organisational weight, as schools move directly from resuming classes to implementing readiness and application plans, monitoring the attendance of targeted students, reviewing reading skills, and preparing the technical and psychological environment for the test.

The official academic calendar for the 2026-2027 academic year confirmed that the mid-semester break for students extended from October 12 to 16, while the period from October 19 to November 12 was set for the implementation of the main study for PIRLS 2026.

Family mobilisation

School administrations sent letters to the parents of the targeted students, in which they called on them to encourage their children to read daily, and to practice the models and educational materials attached, with a focus on understanding texts, extracting information, building conclusions, interpreting ideas and linking the parts of the content read.

The letters emphasised that regular home follow-up contributes to enhancing students’ self-confidence and raising their level of preparedness, stressing that effective preparation is not based solely on intensifying training before the test, but also on practicing conscious reading, discussing the text, identifying its main idea, and distinguishing between explicit information and meanings that need to be inferred.

Allocate daily time

The administrations asked the parents of the targeted students to allocate daily time for reading and practicing literary and informational texts, which would enhance the students’ ability to move from direct reading to analysis, interpretation and evaluation.

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) defines the PIRLS test as an international study conducted every five years to measure reading achievement among fourth-grade students, or the school year that represents four years of formal education. The 2026 cycle represents the sixth edition of the study, and it also completes 25 years of building data on international trends in reading level.

The PIRLS test internationally measures the reading skills of the group that has completed four years of formal education. The test does not include all schools or all students, but is applied to selected school and student samples according to the international study criteria, in order to ensure representation of the educational system and the possibility of comparing its results with the participating systems.

64 educational systems

The PIRLS 2026 cycle includes 64 countries and educational systems, and the UAE appears among the participants, along with the participation of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah as independent benchmarking bodies, which allows reading the results at the national and local levels, and monitoring differences in student performance and reading learning environments.

The international results of the cycle are scheduled to be announced in December 2027, after the data collection, processing and verification have been completed, while the encyclopaedic PIRLS 2026 guide will be issued in November of the same year.

The 2026 cycle gains additional importance as it completes the transition to a fully digital application, using colourful and interactive texts and reading materials, which expands the scope of measuring how students deal with the content, and does not only monitor the final answer, but also allows the collection of data on response paths and strategies used by the most successful readers.

The test measures the student’s ability to deal with literary texts, such as stories, and informational texts, such as articles and reports, and then to answer questions ranging from recalling clear information to building a conclusion, interpreting ideas, linking parts of the text, and evaluating and judging the content.

Quality of reading education

PIRLS does not aim to give the student a school grade or make an individual judgment about his level, but rather to measure the quality of reading instruction within the educational system, identify strengths and areas for improvement, compare performance internationally, and study the impact of the school and home environment and educational practices on the acquisition of reading skills.

The timing of the application places school administrations before concurrent obligations upon resuming studies today, which are to ensure the attendance of selected students and that their participation is not affected by absence following the holiday, to prepare them psychologically without exaggerating the fear of the test, to verify the readiness of devices, platforms and technical communication, and to review basic reading skills without turning the school day into intensive training on the question format.

It also requires schools to strike a delicate balance between completing the curriculum and addressing the gaps revealed by previous diagnostic assessments, and preparing for international study, while avoiding reducing reading improvement to short-term training models.

Reading sessions

The real test for schools is the ability of students to transfer what they have learned to new texts they have never encountered before. A student who is used to looking for a memorised answer may succeed in a similar exercise, but will struggle when asked to explain a situation, connect two ideas, provide evidence from the text, or evaluate the writer's logic.

School administrations called on families to support students through short, regular reading sessions, discussing the content of what they read, and asking thought-provoking questions such as: What is the main idea? What evidence did you rely on? What can we conclude? What is the relationship between the beginning and end of the text?

She stressed the need to avoid rote learning or putting psychological pressure on the result, because the test does not measure memorisation or reading speed alone, but rather measures the student’s ability to understand, analyse, interpret and use information.

She stated that PIRLS 2026 is not a passing test that begins with the return to school desks, but rather a mirror of the effectiveness of teaching reading inside the classroom and at home, and a test of the ability of schools to transform reading from a skill of pronouncing words into a tool for understanding, thinking and building knowledge.