Graham, Marien AletMtsweni, Mareska Unit2024-12-132024-12-132025Marien Alet Graham & Mareska Unit Mtsweni (2025) Parental involvement predicts Grade 4 learners’ reading literacy: an analysis of PIRLS data for students in Mpumalanga, South Africa, Educational Review, 77:6, 1907-1929, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2024.2379416.0013-1911 (print)1465-3397 (online)10.1080/00131911.2024.2379416http://hdl.handle.net/2263/100008DATA AVAILABITY STATEMENT: Authors wanting to access/work with the PIRLS data have to apply for permission at the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA) at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. The authors of this manuscript received permission from the CEA to analyse the PIRLS 2016 data.The purpose of the study was to examine how parents’ involvement is associated with Grade 4 learners' reading literacy achievement in Mpumalanga. Selected variables from the PIRLS 2016 home and school questionnaires were used, and interviews were conducted with parents to gain a deeper understanding of parental involvement in their child’s education in terms of reading literacy. A sequential explanatory mixed-method design was used based on the pragmatism paradigm. The quantitative data (1,025 learners) was gathered before the qualitative data (ten parents). For the quantitative data, multi-level analysis showed that parents who read books with their child before the child went to primary school, parents who participated in their child’s reading outside school hours, and parents being included in their child’s education by the school are the best predictors of Grade 4 reading literacy achievement. For the qualitative data, the findings indicated that parents understand that promoting English as First Additional Language is of great importance; however, they lack the skills, time and resources to effectively teach English reading at home. This study suggests that more research should be conducted on effective parenting strategies at home to teach their children to read.en© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Reading literacyMulti-levelSDG-04: Quality educationSDG-10: Reduced inequalitiesProgress in international reading literacy study (PIRLS)Hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling (HLM)Article