Most language teachers assess reading through the component subskills. Since reading is a receptive language skill, we can only get an idea of how students actually process texts through techniques such as think aloud protocols. It is not possible to observe reading behavior directly. For assessment, we normally focus on certain important skills which can be divided up into major and minor (or contributing) reading skills.
Major reading skills include:
– Reading quickly to skim for gist, scan for specific details, and establish overall organization of the passage
– Reading carefully for main ideas, supporting details, author’s argument and purpose, relationship of paragraphs, fact vs. opinion
– Information transfer from nonlinear texts
Minor reading skills include:
– understanding at the sentence level
syntax, vocabulary, cohesive markers
– understanding at inter-sentence level
reference, discourse markers
– understanding components of nonlinear texts
e meaning of graph or chart labels, keys, and the ability to find and interpret intersection points.
It should be noted that the designations major and minor largely relate to whether the skills pertain to large segments of the text or whether they focus on certain local structural or lexical points. Increasingly, grammar and vocabulary are contextualized as part of reading passages instead of being assessed separately in a discrete point fashion. However, there are times when it is appropriate to assess structure, vocabulary, and language-in-use separately.
Reading texts include both prose passages and nonlinear texts such as tables, graphs, schedules, advertisements and diagrams. Texts for assessment should be carefully chosen to fit the purpose of assessment and the level of the students taking factors such as text length, density and readability into account. For assessment, avoid texts with controversial or biased material because they can upset students and affect the reliability of test results. Ninety percent of the vocabulary in a prose passage should be known to the students (Nation, 1990).
Reading tests use many of the formats already discussed. Recognition formats include MCQs, TFNs, matching and cloze with answers provided. If limited production formats such as short answer are used, usually the emphasis is on meaning, not spelling. Of course, there will be authentic tasks such as reading directions for form-filling where accuracy is important.
As with all skills assessment, it is important to start with a clear understanding of program objectives, intended outcomes and target uses of English. Once these are clear, you can develop specifications or frameworks for developing assessment. Specifications will clearly state what and how you will assess, what the conditions of assessment will be (length and overall design of the test), and will provide criteria for marking or grading.
Here are typical features of specifications:
Content
• What material will the test cover? What aspects of this material?
• What does the student have to be able to do? For example, in reading, perhaps a students has to scan for detailed information.
• A propos reading passages, specifications state the type of text (prose or nonlinear), the number of words in the passage and readability level.
• Acceptable topics and the treatment of vocabulary are usually set forth in specifications. For instance, topics may be restricted to those covered in the student book and vocabulary may focus on core vocabulary in the course.
Conditions
• Specifications usually provide information about the structure of the examination and the component parts. For example, a reading examination may include 5 subsections which use different formats and texts to test different subskills.
• Specific formats or a range of formats are usually given in specifications in addition to the number of questions for each format or section.
• Timing is another condition which specifications state. The time for the entire test may be given or sometimes for each individual subsection. For example, you can place time-dependent skills such as skimming and scanning in separately timed sections or you can place them at the end of a longer reading test where students typically are reading faster to finish within the allocated time.
Grading criteria
• Specifications indicate how the assessment instrument will be marked. For instance, the relative importance of marks for communication as contrasted to those for mechanics (spelling, punctuation, capitalization) should reflect the overall approach and objectives of the instructional program. Similarly, if some skills are deemed more important or require more processing than other skills, they may be weighted more heavily.
In short, specifications help teachers and administrators establish a clear linkage between the overall objectives for the program and the design of particular assessment instruments. Specifications are especially useful for ensuring even coverage of the main skills and content of courses as well as developing tests that are comparable to one another because they are based on the same guidelines.
Recommendations for Reading Assessment Texts
Texts can be purpose written, taken directly from authentic material or adapted. The best way to develop good reading assessments is to constantly be on the watch for appropriate material. Keep a file of authentic material from newspapers, magazines, brochures, instruction guides – anything that is a suitable source of real texts. Other ways to find material on particular topics are to use an encyclopedia written at an appropriate readability level or to use an Internet search engine. Whatever the source, cite it properly.
Questions
Make sure that questions are written at a slightly lower level than the reading passages. Reading questions should be in the same order as the material in the passage itself. If you have two types of questions or two formats based on one text, go through the text with different colored markers to check that you have evenly covered the material in order.
For objective formats such as multiple choice and true/false/not given, try to make all statements positive. If you phrase a statement negatively and an option is negative as well, students have to deal with the logical problems of double negatives. Whenever possible, rephrase material using synonyms to avoid students scanning for verbatim matches. Paraphrasing encourages vocabulary growth as positive washback.
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