Reading Assessment

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Reading Assessment
Helen Huntley
Senior English Language Fellow
MOET, Vietnam

2
Workshop Goals

To examine the micro- and macro-skills of reading
comprehension

To look at the different characteristics of intensive
reading

To review strategies for intensive reading

To examine some problem areas in reading

To discuss different types of reading assessments

To evaluate test items for reading

To practice creating test items for reading

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Types of Written Texts
Academic Reading

Reference material (dictionaries etc.)


Technical reports (lab reports, journal articles)

Articles in magazines and newspapers

Textbooks, theses

Essays, papers

Test directions, test content

Curriculum/syllabus documents

Editorials, opinion writing

Internet research

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Types of Written Texts
Job-related reading

Messages (phone messages, memos)

Letters/emails

Reports (job evaluations, project reports)

Schedules, signs, labels, announcements,
advertisements

Forms, applications, questionnaires


Financial documents (bills, invoices)

Directories (telephone, office)

Manuals, instructions

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Types of Written Texts
Personal reading

Newspapers, magazines

Letters, emails, greeting cards, invitations

Messages, notes, lists

Schedules (buses, flights, trains)

Recipes, menus, maps, calendars

Advertisements

Fiction (novels, short stories, drama, poetry)

Financial documents (tax forms, loan applications)

Comic strips, cartoons, jokes

Journals, diaries


Internet information

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Microskills for Reading
Comprehension

Recognition of letters, words, and spelling

Ability to retain ‘chunks’ of language in short-term
memory

Ability to process written text at an efficient speed

Processing of vocabulary and grammatical patterns

Differentiation of word classes (noun, verb etc.)

Recognition of alternate meanings and grammatical
forms

Recognition and utilization of textual cohesive devices
which indicate relationships between ideas

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Macroskills for Reading
Comprehension

Recognition of rhetorical forms of written discourse


Recognition of the purpose and communicative function of
a text

Making inferences by using background knowledge

Inferring connections and relationships within a text

Distinction of literal from implied meanings

Appropriate interpretation of cultural references

Use of reading strategies to extract meaning from text
skimming, scanning, guessing, activating background knowledge,
detecting discourse markers

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Characteristics of Intensive Reading

Emphasis on the quality of reading

Short texts

Difficult texts (i + 1)

Usually authentic texts

Many tasks to complete after reading

Reading is slow and careful


Need to understand the text in detail

Primarily for language study/testing and reading skills’
development

Teacher/test-driven

Teacher/tester selects texts

(Teacher often intervenes in the reading process)

Teacher/tester determines where and when to read

Reading is usually done in the classroom/test situation
Davidson, P. (2005). Facilitating language learners’ vocabulary development through extensive reading. Assoc. of Teachers of English in
Lebanon Journal, 14: 19-25.

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Strategies for Intensive Reading
Comprehension I

Preview and make predictions

Identify the author’s purpose and argument

Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up
decoding

Use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively
rapid comprehension


Skim the text for main idea

Scan the text for specific information

Use semantic mapping or clustering

Guess when uncertain (vocabulary, inference,
discourse relationship)

Analyze vocabulary: word part, roots, context

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Strategies for Intensive Reading
Comprehension II

Distinguish between literal and implied meanings, fact
and opinion

Capitalize on discourse markers to process
relationships and organization

Draw inferences from both stated and implied content

Identify pronoun references

Understand the components of nonlinear texts
(graphs, charts, diagrams)

Sequencing of ‘events’


Insertion of ‘missing’ sentences into a text

Identify the components of a text summary

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Some Problem Areas…..

Bottom-up and top-down processing

Activation of prior knowledge

Utilization of pre-reading activities

Vocabulary development

Guessing Strategies

Reading Rate

Assessment of reading

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Bottom-up and Top-down
Processing
“Research has shown that reading is only
incidentally visual. More information is
contributed by the reader than by the
print on the page. That is, readers
understand what they read because they

are able to take the stimulus beyond its
graphic representation and assign it
membership to an appropriate group of
concepts already stored in their
memories… Skill in reading depends on
the efficient interaction between linguistic
knowledge and knowledge of the world”
Clarke, M. & Silberstein, S. (1977). Toward a realization of psycholinguistic principles for the ESL
reading class. Language Learning 27: 135-54.

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Activating Prior Knowledge
(schema/schemata)?

Facilitates comprehension

Unlocks vocabulary before reading

Makes readers more independent

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Activating Prior Knowledge?
From Sayers, D.(1967) Murder must advertise
The innings opened briskly. Mr. Barrow, who
was rather a showy hat, though
temperamental, took the bowling at the
factory end of the pitch and cheered the
spirits of his side by producing twos in the
first over. Mr. Garrett, canny and cautious,
stonewalled perseveringly through five balls

of the following over and then cut the
leather through slips for a useful three.

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What do we know?
David knew that his son’s operation
would be expensive. There was
always Aunt Martha. David reached
for the telephone book.

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What don’t we know?
Annie heard the ice cream man
coming down the street. She
remembered her Christmas money
and ran into the house. She locked
the door…

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Activating Activities

Pre-reading discussion

Semantic maps

Visuals: pictures, photographs, charts

Expectations of rhetorical patterns

Predictions/hypotheses

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The Role of Vocabulary in
Reading
Research Studies
Levine & Reeves (1990) cite “lack of adequate vocabulary…
as one of the obstacles to text comprehension” and point
out that “frequent and numerous recycling should be…
emphasized”
Grabe (1991) cites the important role of vocabulary as a
predictor of overall reading ability
Nation (1990) emphasizes “ a systematic and principled
approach to vocabulary by both the teacher and the
learners”
Learning vocabulary is important for reading!
Focus on most frequent words.

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Extensive Reading = Extensive
Vocabulary
Anderson (1996): the average 12
th
grader knows
about 80,000 words in L1; children learn up to
4,000-6,000 new words each year
Miller (1977): children between 6-8 pick up an
average of 14 new words a day
Nagy & Herman (1987): children acquire 3,000
words per year between grades 3-12

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Five-Step Guessing Strategy
How successful is guessing?
1. Look at the unknown word and decide
its part of speech.
2. Look at the context (clause, sentence)
What word goes with what?
3. Look at the relationship with other
sentences. Are there signal words?
4. Guess the word.
5. Check that the guess is correct.

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Increasing Reading Rate
“… fluent reading is rapid; the reader
needs to maintain the flow of
information at a sufficient rate to
make connections and inferences
vital to comprehension”
Grabe (1991). Current developments in second language reading research. TESOL Quarterly 25: 375-406

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L1 Reading Rates
Carver, R. P. (1990).
Reading rate: A review of research and theory
. Academic
Press.
Reading
Process
Processing

Components
Target Words
Per Minute
Scanning Lexical accessing
600
Skimming Semantic encoding
450
“Rauding” Sentence
integrating
300
Learning Idea remembering
200
Memorizing Fact rehearsing
138

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Reading Rate Goal
At the intermediate level:
200 words per minute
+ 70% comprehension

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Slow Reader Problems
These activities slow down reading:

Pronouncing every word while reading

Moving the lips while reading silently

Using a finger or pen to follow the words


Translating

Reading each word individually instead of in
chunks

Looking up all or some unknown words

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Reading Assessment

A reading log of material read

Reading rate chart

Reading portfolio

Reading reports/journals

Oral reports

Comprehension questions in a variety of
formats

Quizzes/tests