A roughly equal number of the scores of year six girls and boys was analysed in the PILNA 2021 reading assessment: 9,913 year six girls’ scores and 9,689 year six boys’ scores.

Figure RRF6.2 shows the average reading performance of year six students by gender. On average, year six girls (505.19, SD = 75.23) scored higher than year six boys (478.76, SD = 79.10) in PILNA 2021.

This was consistent with the trends from the 2015 and 2018 PILNA cycles, when, on average, year six girls scored higher than year six boys in reading performance.