Alberta junior high boys fall behind national average in reading

A new report released by the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) says Albertan boys in Grade 8 are reading at a lower level than students in other provinces.

The assessment released Tuesday comes from from a PCAP survey assessing the skills of Canadian students in three learning areas:science, reading and math.

For French-language schools and for boys in reading, there was a significant negative change between 2010 and 2013, the report said.

According to the report, the average score for Grade 8 boys in Alberta (485) is nine points lower than the Canadian average (494).

Female Grade 8 students, on the other hand, were found to be reading at a level statistically similar to the Canadian average.

Overall, students in Alberta and Ontario earned top scores, while those in Manitoba and New Brunswick scored the lowest.

The report does not seek to explain the reasons behind the declining reading levels among Grade 8 boys in Alberta, as it only looked at students abilities not how students across Canada are taught.

Above average in science, steady in math

There is good news for Alberta students in other areas, though. Both male and female Grade 8 students performed significantly better than the Canadian average in science testing.

The emphasisof this years PCAP was science, focusing specifically on nature of science, life science, physical and earth science.

Students in Alberta achieve significantly higher scores in all four sub-domains compared to the Canadian means, the report said.

A spokesperson with the Edmonton public school board says they will comment on the PCAPsurvey on Thursday, when provincial achievement test results will be released.

The PCAP survey is done every three years and is released by the provincial education ministers or the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC). Alberta's recently appointed Education Minister, Gordon Dirks, is the current head of CMEC, a position that rotates between the provincial ministers.

In total, students from more than 1,500 schools participated in the spring 2013 survey.