To provide information about the extent to which students enter primary school equipped with some basic literacy and numeracy skills as a foundation for learning, the TIMSS Early Learning Survey (or “Home Questionnaire”) included a set of questions asking parents how well their child could do various literacy and numeracy activities when he or she first began primary school. Twelve items formed the Literacy and Numeracy Tasks scale in TIMSS 2019 (see About the Scale in Exhibit 5.18).

Parents’ reports indicate that early preparation appears to have an effect on mathematics and science achievement through the fourth grade. Exhibit 5.19 shows that, on average across countries, 25 percent of students entered school able to perform early literacy and numeracy tasks “very well” according to their parents, and more than half (51%) entered school able to perform the tasks “moderately well.” Parents’ assessments of their children’s early literacy and numeracy skills corresponded well with mathematics achievement at the fourth grade, with the children able to perform “very well” having higher achievement than those performing “moderately well” (532 vs. 498). The 24 percent of the students in the “not well” category had the lowest average achievement (468). Exhibit 5.20 provides a similar picture in relation to science achievement. Students in the “very well” category had the highest average science achievement (518) compared with students in the “moderately well” and “not well” categories (488 and 461, respectively).