ASSESSING READING

CHAPTER 3

1.         Approaches to reading:

One of the most accurate approaches about reading includes both bottom –up skills recognizing and making sense of letters, words and sentences- and top down processing that deals with whole texts.

Reading is an interactive skill in which the background knowledge or schemata that the reader brings to the task is constantly interwoven with the new material.

2.       Reading sub skills:

2.1.     Major skills:

Skimming, scanning and establishing overall organization of the passage

Reading for main ideas, supporting details, arguments and purpose, relationship of paragraphs and fact versus opinion.

Information transfer from non linear texts.

Drawing inferences from both stated and implied content.

2.2.  Minor or enabling skills:

Understanding at a sentence level

Understanding at inter-sentence level

Understanding components of nonlinear texts

3.       Specifications: They are useful for ensuring even coverage of the main skills and the course content as well as developing tests based on same guidelines. Some of their features are: content, conditions and grading criteria.

4.       General considerations:

4.1.     Use texts from different sources: newspapers, books, magazines, brochures and real texts.

4.2.   Include both prose passages and nonlinear texts from tables, schedules, maps, ads and diagrams.

4.3.   Avoid controversial or biased material.

4.4.   Check the languages of your reading texts.

4.5.   Write lower level questions than the reading passages.

4.6.   Reading questions should be done in the same order as the material in the passage itself.

5.       Common formats:

5.1.     Rational deletion cloze

5.2.   Multiple choice

5.3.   True / false / not given

5.4.   Short answer

5.5.   Sequencing tasks

5.6.   Combination tasks