Reader background knowledge
Individual letters and sounds
Figure 3: Interactive model
Moreover, the discussion about reading cannot be separated from micro- and macro-skills of reading. To get maximum impact of reading, the readers are
expected to have micro- and macro-skills of reading.
d. Reading Comprehension Assessment
Traditional measures of reading comprehension are limited. They provide only a general indicator how well a student understands text. Comprehension is
typically measured by requiring students’ to read a short passage and then answer multiple-choice or short-answer questions or by using a cloze task i.e., asking
students to fill in the blanks where the words have been omitted. These traditional measures of reading comprehension provide only a basic indication of
how well a student understands a text and offer little information about how the students uses cognitive and metacognitive processes. In short, they do not explain
why the students may be struggling.
Comprehension
Recently, it is important to select a measure that must closely matches the users’ needs or purpose when selecting a test or assessment procedure to use.
Based on Klingner et al. 2007: 17 teachers should consider numerous factors when choosing a test or assessment procedure. Those factors are presented as
follows: 1
The purpose of the testing screening, progress monitoring, assessing level of reading, research, or assessing students’ competence in
comparison to peers. 2
The specific information needed about the students’ reading comprehension types of questions missed, level
3 The number of students being tested i.e., an individual, a small group,
or a whole class 4
The length of the test e.g., shorter tests can be easier to give and less stressful for the student, but may not have enough questions or types of
tasks to provide sufficient inform ation about students’ performance.
5 Whether the test is an individually or group-administered test.
6 The number of forms available with the test, particularly if multiple
administrations are needed e.g., many norm-referenced tests come with two forms, making them useful for assessing progress over time-
students are given one version of the test as a pretest and another as a posttest.
7 For norm-referenced tests, the extent to which the norming sample is
similar to the students to whom the test will be administrated. 8
The examiner’s qualifications e.g., whether the tester has the skills to give highly specific tests.
9 The amount of training needed to administer a test, score it, and
interpret results e.g., norm referenced tests typically require some training.
e. Designing Reading Assessment Task
Brown 2004: 189 explains for different assessment designs based on reading types. Each of them is presented as follows:
1 Perceptive Reading Task
a Reading Aloud
The test-taker sees separate letters, words, andor short sentences and read them aloud, one by one, in the presence of administrator.
b Written Response
The test- takers’ task reproduces the probe of writing. The evaluation of
the test- takers’ responses must be carefully treated, if an error occurs, the teacher
has to determine its source; what might be assumed to be writing error, for example may actually be a reading error, andor vice versa.
c Multiple-choice
Multiple-choice responses are not only a matter of choosing one of four or five of possible answers. Other formats, some of them are especially useful at the
low levels of reading, include samedifferent, circle the answer, truefalse, choose the letter, and matching.
d Pictured-cued Items
Test-takers are shown a picture with the written text and given one of a number of possible tasks to perform.
2 Selective Reading Task
a Multiple-choice for form-focused criteria
Multiple-choice format is the most popular method of testing reading knowledge of vocabulary and grammar for the reason of practically. It is easy to
administer and can be scored quickly.
b Matching Tasks
Test- taker’s task is simply to respond correctly, which makes matching
tasks in appropriate format. The most frequently appearing criterion in matching procedures is vocabulary.
c Editing Task
Editing for grammatical or theoretical errors is a widely used test method for assessing linguistic competence in reading.
d Pictured-cued Tasks
Pictures and photographs may be equally well utilized for examining ability at the selective reading.
e Gap-Filling Tasks
Many of the multiple-choice tasks can be converted into gap-filling or fill- in-the-blank in which the test-
taker’s response is to write a word or phrase. An extension of gap-filling tasks is to create sentence completion items where test-
takers read part of a sentence and then complete it by writing a phrase 3
Intensive Reading Task a
Cloze Tasks In cloze tasks, test-takers should have ability to fill in gaps in an
incomplete image visual, auditory, or cognitive and supply from background schemata omitted details.
b Impromptu Reading Plus Comprehension Questions
The traditional “Read a passage and answer some questions” technique is undoubtedly the oldest and the most common. Virtually every proficiency test
