The article analyzes the most common elementary school teaching materials for two subjects: ‘Reading’ and ‘The World Around Us’. This is done in the course of discussion of the PIRLS-2006 results. The author considers the effect of the textbooks and workbooks on the high scores achieved by Russian fourth-graders on the international test. Research results show that the textbooks and workbooks used to teach reading in the Russian elementary school help achieve high PIRLS scores. At the same time, these textbooks prepare the ground for the problems that show up in older students and lead to a steep decline in reading skills as detected by the PISA tests.