Chapter 1. Introduction guage and math lessons in grade one (‘groep drie’ in Dutch). At the end of primary education, in grade six, students take a standardized test (e.g., the ‘Cito-toets’), which helps to determine their suitability for different secondary education tracks. In these tests, students’ literacy and numeracy, among others, are assessed. Therefore, their proficiency in literacy and numeracy is important for their educational trajectory. Basic skills, however, already play a crucial role in educational continuity within primary education. Proficiency levels are consistently monitored and assessed annually, with most schools even administering standardized tests twice a year. The resulting data from these assessments form a unique and rich dataset, which is utilized in most chapters of this dissertation. The current state of basic skill proficiency International studies, such as PISA, TIMMS, and PIRLS, report that children in several countries lack proficiency in their basic skills. Figure 1.1 visualizes the PISA results between 2003 and 2022 for students’ reading (left) and math (right) performances. The graphs in Figure 1.1 illustrate the results for the OECD, the EU14, and the Netherlands. As illustrated by the left graph, there is a decrease in reading performance for students in OECD countries since 2012. A similar result holds for the EU14 countries as of 2015. Before 2012, the reading proficiency of students was rather stable. As depicted in the right graph, students’ math performance has been gradually falling since 2003 in the OECD and EU14 countries. The decline has, however, remarkably accelerated since 2018. Although the COVID-19 pandemic (with school closures, 4
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