Concerning the PIRLS test.
The best predictors of PIRLS 2006 reading scores are (1) the level of poverty, and (2) presence of a school library of at least 500 books. The amount of instruction in reading is negatively related to PIRLS reading scores.
Krashen, S., Lee, S.Y. and McQuillan, J. 2012. Is the library important? Multivariate studies at the national and international level. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 8(1): 26-36.
I replicated these results with PIRLS 2011. Once again the strongest predictors were level of poverty (negative) and the presence of a school library (positive).
This time the amount of reading instruction was not related at all to PIRLS scores.
Krashen, S., Lee, S.Y. and Lao, C. 2017. Comprehensible and Compelling: The Causes and Effects of Free Voluntary Reading. Libraries Unlimited.

Research on the teaching of phonics.
Intensive systematic phonics teaching has a positive influence on tests in which children are asked to pronounce words presented in isolation, but no impact on tests in which children have to understand what they read.
Garan, E. 2001. Beyond the smoke and mirrors: A critique of the National Reading Panel report on phonics. Phi Delta Kappan 82, no. 7 (March): 500–506.
Krashen, S. 2009. Does intensive reading instruction contribute to reading comprehension? Knowledge Quest 37(4): 72–74.

Phonemic awareness. According to my analysis (Krashen, 2001) phonemic awareness training improves scores on tests of phonemic awareness, but does not influence reading test scores.

Krashen, S. 2001. Does “pure” phonemic awareness training affect reading comprehension? Perceptual and Motor Skills 93: 356–358.

You are, of course, free to disagree with the results of this research, but you are not free to ignore it

If mats is a problem then being able to pick up a text book and read instructions and examples. Can and does alleviate many alleged problem and is tantamount to getting the horse before the cart!

Good reading skills as a first requisite aren't racist or xenophobic! Just a useful tool that allows almost anyone to independently acquire relevant information. And on any STEM subject!

Resisting that is arguably, the only racist or xenophobic commentary on this thread to date. And typical risible rubbish put about by folks deliberately obtuse or welded to whole language learning, where their pronunciation (pro nun see a shun) becomes, (pro nounce see a shone) Controversy,(Con trov es see) Becomes (con trove essy) Even though there's just one E in controversy!

So from day one, whole of language learning comes with mangled pro nounce see a shone. That can only ever be remedied by phonetics! And at foundation!

Otherwise film becomes fillum, milk become millick and so on?

Albeit becomes (Al be it) instead of (all be it) Al though, I could Al ways be wrong?

By their fruits ye shall know them and our proof of the pudding shows, we've been not only been going backwards for years? But have deliberately limited the class to the pace of the slowest learners, for fear of creating elitism?

Just how diabolically dumb is that, chain you brightest most able minds to the limited progress of the intellectually challenged so their feelings won't be hurt!

Better that problem never occurs, by inculcating a culture of early learning, music and meditation in the class room. To develop the full potential of every Aussie student to the max, but particularly those whose parents see education as the devil's tool.

Or english taught as a requirement, in an english speaking country, as racist or xenophobic!

Don't like english shocks? Prefer Arabic?

Well just get yourself over there where she is spoken mate and just try to get on? Okay?

WE don't need you or your arrogance personified attitude!
Alan B.

Comprehension of what words mean is only ever accomplished if langue is taught as a mother tongue with pictorial examples. Thus if a lion crosses the road? Is accompanied by a pictorial depicting that event, comprehension follows.

Whole of language advocates don't just understand that, as they fight for their preferred template and one that has seen us falling further and further behind our contemporaries!

No only is our future harmed by this pigheadedness, but the kids destined to be part and parcel of it!

Illiteracy and innumeracy numbers have never ever been higher! So the changes and the untested intellectual concept experiments have worked well haven't they!?

Stop treating our kids as lab rats in pet projects!

If it ain't broke don't fix it!
Alan B.

Only an academic could have produced that post Skrashen.

Would you please tell me how having a library in a school helps anyone who can't read. Do they pick up reading skills by osmosis, from the books mere presence. Don't you think they have to be able to read, before a library is of any use?

And these people wonder why we reckon they are a total waste of space & money.

I was being sarcastic. I thought that would be obvious.

But there is a truth in there. The "progressives" that run Education would consciously or unconsciously revile the English language as it represents (to them) colonialism and white supremacy.

What good is a library is children can't read?
The underlying question is how we learn to read.
The hypothesis is that children can understand texts with the help of contact, knowledge of the world, and basic phonics. Understanding texts is the way we learn to read.
Frank Smith presents this example: The child is reading the sentence "the man is riding on the horse." And cannot identify the final word. Knowing the meaning of the rest of the sentence and recognizing the initial consonant will lead the child to identify the last word. It doesn't ensure 100% accuracy, but. it reduces the possibilities.
Those who think you need 100% knowledge of phonics need to explain how soon many children learn to read without full knowledge of all phonics rules, and sometimes with no knowledge of phonics, as well as the finding that intensive heavy phonics does not predict scores on tests in which children have to understand what they read.
Also: phonics experts have not succeeded in describing all the rules of phonics, many rules are very very complicated, that the experts keep modifying their descriptions.
I discuss this in: Krashen, S. 2002. Defending whole language: The limits of phonics instruction and the efficacy of whole language instruction. Reading Improvement 39 (1): 32-42.