Teaching English Toolbox - OPEN ACCESS SANDBOX

Assessing and Testing Reading

Cute cat reading, generated with Craiyon

Assessment in reading should be a mix of formal and informal measures - not just tests. Thus, teachers could use (among other things): 

  • learner production in sharing, for example, their understanding of a text (maybe even a text of their choice) (without assessing speaking, or as a mediation activity if the text is really difficult); 
  • learner visuals: reading a story and drawing a cover, adding graphics to a text, turning a text into a comic;
  • observations: Are learners more and more independent with reading tasks and do they move up levels?
  • observations of instructions: Are learners able to follow printed instructions without translating or asking their neighbors?

Keep in mind that reading and understanding instructions is a curricular aim and that by translating instructions, teachers may be taking away moments of learning and of assessment.

Assessing and testing reading are difficult in that:

  • Reading is often combined with other skills (such as speaking, writing, or drawing);
  • There are many levels or levels of comprehension (e.g. see the Layers of Literacy site); 
  • Reading tests are difficult to write.

   

Think about it!

Do you need to give tests? Could you assess reading in another way? How about trying the following in your classroom:

  • Have learners use Newsela or other tools that provide graded reading texts (e.g. through Lexile levels) and see if one week they can do the lower level activities and then the next week the higher level activities. Currently, adapting text to specific Lexile or CEFR levels is relatively simple with AI. That said, you might think about if you really need to "test" comprehension or if you can observe elements of it in general classroom activities with authentic texts;
  • Use graded readers (see the section in this toolbox, many have placement tests) or tools such as EPIC activities where you clearly see the level. If learners go from A1 to A2 or beyond, then why test reading so narrowly when these tools are proof of attainment of the curricular aims (the curriculum does not say that the learners have to take a test on the history of bikes, it provides the level the learners should attain through exposure and work);
  • If you let learners do research for other subjects (e.g. "Space" in NMG), you might have them pull out information (high level!!) from an English text and use it in German (don't translate, either list in bullet points or summarize the gist). This should count as evidence of A2 reading skills!

Example: Read and Draw - Lower Primary

Look at the picture below and answer the following questions:

  1. What's being tested?
  2. Why are the instructions in English and German? Why might you do this? Why might you NOT do this?
  3. How did the child do? How would you assess them?
  4. How could gist be assessed through these statements?
  5. What are some problems with read and draw?
  6. What information do the points provide the learner?
Classroom test (model answer). ©PHZH (L. Buechel)
  1. Reading skills / Detail understanding / Drawing skills.
  2. Because this is a test and the children shouldn't have to spend time decoding and understanding the instructions, you might use German. This is disputed - some studies show it's a good thing, others show it makes no difference in performance. If you leave it in English, you can consider giving points for the construct "understanding instructions" and you then might consider giving points for "understanding words" and then you have two constructs. However, this is a prerequisite for doing the rest, so it is a problem. However, you should ask yourself if this test is worth all that effort or if you can use it as a worksheet and observe those two constructs.
  3. They got everything correct!
  4. Give the picture an appropriate title; state where such a picture might be found.
  5. When you test one skill, you go through another skill - if the child is not a good artist, then this might be problematic. Alternatively, the child could copy the word where it should be in the picture (LAKE in the middle of the picture) but then you have to declare if you are including writing (copying) or not. 
  6. The points show comprehension of lexis - how might you focus more on the whole sentence and less on the words? The point assignment is arbitrary. And ask yourself when you have - in real interaction with people - used such language. You might use "Look over there! In the center!!" but rarely do we describe pictures. And if we describe pictures, rarely are that that simplistic. 

Example: Be Critical of Tests - Reading Upper Primary

There is no perfect test which is why teachers need MULTIPLE MEASURES of each standard in order to be fair in assessing a learner's ability or progress. Separating the four language skills is difficult in an of itself - think about how you might record evidence in two or more categories:

  • when you test listening through reading (e.g. a multiple choice test)?
  • when you use a cloze or gap fill and children spell incorrectly or use "other" words (are you testing reading or writing)?
  • when you give an open question about a reading but don't understand the written response?

In the TKT course, you will find descrptions of test item types and their advantages and disadvantages and the book provided above also gives you a good basis. 

In this example (originally from Lernkontrollen zu Young World 3, Klasse 5, 2010), think about the following questions:

  1. What reading construct (subskill) does each question prompt? Is the balance a good one? Is anything missing?
  2. What are alternatives to "true/false/not in the text" questions?
  3. Could reading related to this topic be assessed in another way, without a "test"?
  4. This test is graded for /10 points. Would you know any alternatives to points?
  5. If every child in your class got certain questions right or certain questions wrong, what would you do? How do you do such analyses?
This text has been adapted from its original version (Original text: Klett Verlag. 2019. Young World 3. Lernkontrollen.)

For each question, here is what is asked:
1. Understanding single words - "normal actiivties" which are also parallel words. 
2. detail
3.  detail
4. detail
5. infer - if a mistake was made they had to restart.
6. detail
7. detail
8. detail understanding of single word "our"
9. detail
10. detail

What's missing: Inference could be more, global or gist comprehension (e.g. leave out last sentence and have learners write their own ending sentence or give it a new title), detail for grammar (which verbs let you know that it is not in the future?).

Essentially, T/F does not give you any insight into what a learner is thinking and does not provide you with information on the sub-skills that need development. Furthermore, we do want learners to infer meaning from text because that promotes critical thinking. Thus, this sort of exercise might be good for TEACHING because then you can discuss the "not in the text" answers with your class and practice logical thought, but these are not good for TESTING situations for many reasons. 

Alternatively, you could use "True/False/Justify" where learners locate the answer in the text or write out WHY they selected a certain answer. 

You could also have learners write their own true/false questions to see who was interested in what and who pulled what out of the text but then you'd have to be careful not to assess writing, too. 

A jigsaw reading or reciprocal reading exercise might be a way to observe who needs the most help, who is dependent on the dictionary or who doesn't have the motivation to try. You could also have learners write their own short texts about the most recent Field Day and then read each others for differences in feelings about the day, favorite events, etc....

The points do not tell you much because different questions were on different difficulty levels. Just using "grades" is more telling than "points" but where you set grades might differ individually. Perhaps you only use three levels: 5 (got most everything right), 4 (a few mistakes), 3 (must re-do until you get a 4). Perhaps you don't use ANY points but have learners learn from the test and then re-do it. 
There are many discussions about the uselessness of points, e.g. https://www.teachersgoinggradeless.com/ 

Especially if you are using scores and points and recording numbers, you have to be fair. So you have to look at the item difficulty and the item discrimination index (see book attached at the top of this page) in order to truly be fair. Even Cambridge does this and you can do it on a class level! |425946|"]Cambridge Language Assessment provides wonderful materials to learn about tests and testing! 

  • What are the subskills / constructs of reading that you could assess? How do you make these clear to yourself and to your learners?
  • If you were to analyze a reading test from a coursebook, would you be able to justify what is being tested and why? Give an example, e.g. of a multiple-choice test.
  • What might you observe in a learner's reading behaviors that you can use for report card grades and how can you systematically take note of this in a standards-based way?
  • What are some common item types for assessing reading skills? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?