Cathy C. Suarez

BBL 5053

University of Texas as San Antonio

Alderson (2000) describes reading as , “The most extensively researched and the most enigmatic of the so-called language skills.”

Goodman (1970) refers to reading as,” A psycholinguistic guessing-game.”

Reading is _______________. complicated

1. Overlap among the four skills

2. Similarities in the types of performance among the four skills

3. Assessment tasks: the most popular, most researched, most common and the oldest

Key Points

Yes

Yes Yes

Can the teacher directly observe………?

Observable Performance of the fours skills

Process Product

Listening

Speaking

Reading

Writing

(Brown and Abeywickrama , p.159)

No No

Yes No*

No No

Yes Yes

Bottom up, top down, and schemata strategies

Micro and Macro skills for comprehension

Comprehension strategies

1. Reading Skills

● Perceptive: Letters, words, punctuation (Bottom-up processing)

● Selective: assessment formats: picture cued-tasks, multiple-choice, matching, true/false

● Interactive: reader interacts with the text, “the process of negotiating meaning” (Top-down processing)

● Extensive: big picture understanding of longer texts

2. Types of Reading Performance

Reading Aloud (S,R)

Written Response (R,W)

Picture cued-items(R, L)

Multiple-Choice (R)

Editing for grammatical

errors (R)

3. Assessment Tasks

Gap-Filling (S,R)

Matching (R)

Short-Answer Tasks (R,W)

Scanning (R)

Ordering Tasks (R)

Information Transfer (R,S,W)

Interpretation of graphic

information ( R,S,W)

Skimming (R, S/W)

Summarizing and Responding

(R,W)

Notetaking and Outlining (R,W)

Almost 20 types of tasks, corresponding to different types of reading performance

Over 30 examples, most with overlap of skills being assessed

Multiple-Choice (R)

Cloze Procedure (L,S,R, W)

Impromptu Reading with comprehension questions

Most popular, researched, oldest

I wonder if the person next to me is really ____________.

I’m glad the presenter hasn’t put me to _______________.

Will they ever get the ____________ right in this classroom?

Is it 9:00 _________?

Let’s Practice!

It is difficult to isolate reading from listening, speaking, and writing. Most assessment tasks overlap with at least one of the other skills.

Types of reading performance are similarly classified:

Selective and extensive reading, similar to listening

Similar to speaking there is interactive and extensive

There are numerous types of assessment tasks and variations to choose from.

Summary

Dr. Caroline Clapham

Brown, H., & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language assessment: Principles and classroom practices (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Fulcher, G. and Thrasher, R. Language Testing Videos. In association with ILTA, available: http://languagetesting.info. Retrieved from http://languagetesting.info/video/main.html

Goodman, K. S. (1970). Reading: A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game. In D. V. Gunderson (Ed.), Language and Reading: An Interdisciplinary Approach. (pp. 107-119): CAL. Retrieved from https://login.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/docview/54337249?accountid=7122

References