Assessing Second Language Reading

Copyright © 2016 by Nooreiny Maarof.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-5424-4

                eBook          978-1-4828-5425-1

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CONTENTS

Intro Duction

Chapter 1 Perspectives On Reading Comprehension

Chapter 2 Reading Theories And Models

Chapter 3 Schema Theory And Reading

Chapter 4 Constructivism And The Second Language Model Of Reading

Chapter 5 Reading Comprehension Assessment

Chapter 6 Measures Of Comprehension

Chapter 7 Comparing Two Tasks: Written-Recall And Multiple Choice Questions

Chapter 8 Assessing Understanding: The Immediate Written Recall

Chapter 9 Implications For Teaching And Research

Chapter 10 Portfolio: Alternative Assessment In Second Language Reading

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

References

I would like to thank Sharmini Ghanaguru for her kind assistance in preparation of Chapter 10 of the book

INTRODUCTION

Assessing Second Language Reading is addressed to both teacher- trainees and to those interested in the teaching and learning of reading in a second or foreign language. It is specifically for teachers who are interested in an alternative method of assessing reader’s reading comprehension for both research purposes and classroom use. The book includes a general overview of reading theories and models. It provides a thorough theoretical basis for teachers to understand the comprehension process. An example of how the written recall is used to assess reader’s understanding is also included.

The premise of the book is that reading is a constructive and interactive activity whereby the reader constructs meaning based on what he or she already knows about the text and on information within the text. Chapter 1 explicates on the various views of reading comprehension and assessment. Chapter 2 describes basic concepts behind reading models. Chapter 3 describes the three basic types of reading models and explores the concepts of schema and reading. Chapter 4 introduces the reader to the idea of constructivism in second language reading. Chapter 5 discusses factors involved in assessing comprehension. The written recall, an alternative assessment method, is described in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 describes a study which compared the written recall and multiple-choice question tasks. Chapter 8 provides a detailed description of the written recall procedure. Chapter 9 concludes with some recommendations for second language reading pedagogy and research.

I hope the book will be a useful resource for the teacher in his or her attempt to facilitate and understand readers’ understanding.

CHAPTER 1

PERSPECTIVES ON READING COMPREHENSION

… assessment is infrequently the final act and very frequently Act One or even the prologue to the event of teaching and learning.

- Elizabeth Bernhardt (1996: 191)

Current views of reading comprehension have been largely influenced by constructivist perspectives. The consensus is that reading is an interactive process involving features of readers, texts, and tasks. In particular, the reader is seen as an active participant who constructs meaning from the clues found in printed text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Bloome & Greene, 1984; Farr & Carey, 1986; Grabe, 1991; Rumelhart, 1977; Schank, 1984; Spiro, 1980, among others).In this view, readers cease to be passive tabula rasas or mere receivers of information. On the contrary, meaning is actively created by the reader as h/she interacts with text. Hence, meaning is not inherent in texts, but rather texts have the potential for meaning (Widdowson, 1979). With the active participation of the reader, reading becomes an individual process that entails different interpretations for different readers. Reading comprehension is thus understood as involving multiple interpretations of text that vary from reader to reader. These differences in reconstructions of meaning are due, in large measure, to the differential amounts of prior knowledge that each reader possesses (Bernhardt, 1991; Carrell, 1983; Langer, 1983; Langer & Nicolich, 1981; Spiro & Myers, 1984; Nuttall, 1996).

The view of the reading process has thus changed from one in which the text has been given prominence to one where the interaction of reader and text is considered most significant. This change in perspective (whereby readers are seen as active participants in the reading process), as evident in the area of reading research, has occurred much like Kuhn’s (1970) description of paradigm shifts. In reading research, one of the catalysts for change has been the focus on the reader as one who plays an active role in the reading process (Kamil, 1984). The prevalent constructivist conception of reading comprehension is one that portrays the reader as actively building a mental representation (Spivey, 1989, 4) of text through a process of relating new or incoming information to information already stored in memory (Bernhardt & James, 1987,3). Changes in models and theories of reading inform us of the processes that are involved in the act-of making meaning from texts. An ideal and desired consequence of that awareness should allow us to base assessments of reading on these changes so that what is understood of the process is reflected in our assessment measures.

Constructivist views of reading assessment emphasize measures that focus on how readers construct meaning (Bernhardt, 1983; Johnston, 1983; Pearson & Valencia, 1987). The interest is on process over product measures. Consequently, researchers are beginning to conduct studies from an insider’s or emic perspective (Johnston, 1989), an approach characteristic of qualitative sociologists, educational anthropologists, and sociolinguists (Garcia & Pearson, 1991). This shift in approach focusing on how individuals construct meaning has made many educators and researchers realize the inadequacy of a majority of performance measures. As a consequence, the rhetoric of the field of education, in particular the area of reading comprehension, calls for assessment measures that could reveal how readers approach, monitor, and process text.

ASSESSMENT OF READING IN A SECOND/FOREIGN LANGUAGE CONTEXT

Most current assessments of reading comprehension do not reflect the change in perspective about what constitutes reading comprehension. In fact, the prevalent assessment practices and approaches (e.g., multiple-choice tests) are at odds with current theoretical and research-based views of the reading process (Bernhardt, 1991; Winograd, Paris, & Bridge, 1991; Pearson & Valencia, 1987). The existing practices of reading comprehension assessments such as the multiple-choice questions test continue to maintain single, predetermined correct answers. This approach focuses on the evaluation of the number of right or wrong answers only, rather than on the ways readers construct meaning. Furthermore, this conventional approach most often measures only isolated skills and quantity of answers correct (Bernhardt &James, 1987; Winograd, Paris, & Bridge, 1991). Such traditional assessment practice implies that only texts carry meaning, and that all the reader has to do is to extract this meaning. However, research has indicated that reader-based factors, such as prior knowledge, play a more pervasive role in this meaning-making process than the features of text alone (e.g. Allen, Bernhardt, Berry, & Demel, 1988). In this era of accountability, wherein scores of reading tests are used as yardsticks to measure such factors as educational outcomes, schools’ effectiveness, and teachers’ effectiveness and to make crucial decisions regarding placement (Johnston, 1983; Pearson & Valencia, 1987), there is a need for more theory-based and research-based measures of comprehension. In addition, because reading involves a complex interaction of readers, texts, and tasks, it is important that measures of comprehension are adequately sensitive to capture any effects of such interactions on readers’ performance (Davey, 1989).

Furthermore, because reading scores are relied on to make important political, instructional, and placement decisions, it is thus crucial that assessment measures employed need to be not only reliable, valid, and effective measures of reading comprehension, but should also reflect the emerging conception of what research evidence has indicated to be a viable model of the reading process. Reading processes, however, are not directly observable. We can only infer from samples of behaviors assumed to reflect real reading (Farr & Carey, 1986). No single measure could thus capture adequately what readers comprehend from text. The old axiom that reading is a complex process implies that no simplistic measure could reveal the essence of the process. Therefore, several researchers recommend the use of multiple measures or a variety of measures to adequately assess understanding of texts read by using both product and process measures (Aiken, 1987; Bernhardt, 1991; Carrell, Devine, & Eskey, 1988; Garcia & Pearson, 1991;Johnston, 1983; Pearson & Valencia, 1987; among others).

For students in a developing country like Malaysia, the medium of instruction in education is in the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, whereas the language of a majority of bibliographical materials remains in English- an official second language. Students therefore deal daily with texts written in the English language in their academic work. They have to read, understand, and often synthesize the information gleaned from English texts into an academic report or paper, which is in turn written in the academic language, Bahasa Malaysia. Reading comprehension for these students is thus more than just a matter of answering questions that have a single preselected answer. What these students do in real-life academic reading is not reflected in the assessments that they have been exposed to throughout their earlier education. It is therefore important that assessments of reading comprehension reflect closely the real-life academic reading activity that students engage in everyday; in other words, reading comprehension assessments need to have ecological validity (Fare & Carey, 1986; Johnston, 1983; Spiro & Myers,1984).

There are various assessment approaches to reading comprehension that are in line with the current theoretical and research-based view of what is considered to be the reading process (e.g. the immediate written recall protocol, reading journals, portfolios, etc; See Aebersold & Field, 1997, for a discussion of some alternative assessment methods). There is an urgent need for such approaches to be included in assessments of students’ reading comprehension. Because it is often the case that assessments inevitably drive instruction (Aiken, 1987; Jorcey, 1987), assessment approaches implemented should be consistent with theory and research evidence on the reading process. This could lead to a theoretically sound pedagogy (Bernhardt & James, 1987, 7). Curriculum designs that include results of assessments to inform, revise, and complement instruction (e.g. Jenks, 1981) are important in promoting effective educational goals. The use of such assessment approaches could complement instruction of reading in a second language. The written recall protocol could provide more than mere quantitative information (i.e. scores). More importantly, it can reveal qualitative information that can be used for diagnostic and instructional purposes. It is important to understand what is involved in the process of reading in order to adequately assess readers’ understanding. The next chapter discusses in detail the reading process and the various models of reading.

CHAPTER 2

READING THEORIES AND MODELS

The terms ‘theory’ and ‘model’ as used often in the educational literature seem to reflect similar denotations (Kamil, 1986). Nonetheless, they can be distinguished in terms of how each is defined. According to Kamil (1986), a theory is essentially a representation of what is known to be factual about a set of phenomena whereas a model assists us to visualize what it is that we mean by the theory, ... (p. 71). Lachman (1960, cited in Kamil, 1986) delineated other uses of models: as analogies; to make predictions; to demonstrate the application of a theory; and to help visualize elements and relationships between these elements within an area. Hence, Kamil’s description of the terms ‘theory’ and ‘model’ can be aptly extended to reading theories and models in that reading models are attempts to depict theories of the reading process.

The history of reading research is said to be about a hundred years old. The focus on building explicit models of the reading process, however, is only a little over three decades old (Samuels & Kamil, 1988). Since the 1960’s, however, various changes and improvements