Reading ability among children aged 9-10 has fallen in the US, Canada, France and several other developed countries, according to a comparative study of 50 countries published yesterday.

Ten countries fared worse, compared with five years ago, in the 2016 PIRLS assessment of pupils in their fourth year of schooling -- namely Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iran, Israel, Malta, New Zealand, Portugal and the US.

Eighteen, including England, Russia and Qatar made improvements.

Russia and Singapore topped the boards with 581 and 576 points respectively in the study of 319,000 children, who were assessed on their ability to understand literary and informational texts.