Measuring Reading Competence: A Theoretical-Prescriptive Approach PDF
Preview Measuring Reading Competence: A Theoretical-Prescriptive Approach
MEASURING READING COMPETENCE A Theoretical-Prescriptive Approach MEASURING READING COMPETENCE A Theoretical-Prescriptive Approach STEVEN SCHWARTZ UniversityofQueensland St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of CongressCatalogingin Publication Data Schwartz, Steven. Measuringreadingcompetence. Bibliography: p. Includesindex. 1.Reading-Ability testing. 2. Reading-Research. 3. Individualizedreadingin struction. I. Title. LB1050.46.S38 1984 371.2'6 84-17953 ISBN978-1-4899-0389-1 ISBN978-1-4899-0387-7(eBook) DOI10.1007/978-1-4899-0387-7 ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaNewYork1984 OriginallypublishedbyPlenumPress,NewYorkin1984. Softcoverreprintofthehardcover1stedition1984 Allrights reserved No part of this book may bereproduced, stored ina retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher For Tricia 'TISTHE GOODREADERTHAT MAKESTHE GOODBOOK.' - RALPH WALDO EMERSON PREFACE This book concerns measuring reading skills. It is not meant to be a compre hensive survey of reading research or a review of all possible approaches to reading measurement (although considerable attention isgiven toboth subjects). Instead, the purpose of this book is to present a coherent, theoretically based approach to measuring reading competence. The ability to measure a phenomenon is an important prerequisite for scientific analysis. As Lord Kelvin said, "One's knowledge of science begins when he can measure what he is speaking about and express it in numbers." Unfortunately, not just any numbers will do. Presently available reading tests provide their users with a plethora of numbers-age levels, percentiles, grade equivalents-buttheir scientific value isquestionable.The problem isthat there is more to scientific measurement than merely assigning numbers to arbitrarily chosen behaviors. Scientific measurement occurs only within the confines of a theory, and most reading tests are atheoretical. Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth in reading research. Although there are still many unanswered questions, important decoding skills, language competencies, and cognitive structures underlying reading have been identified and are beginning to be understood. A tentative model of reading, based on recent research findings, is presented in this book. The model is used to demonstrate how theoretically meaningful measures of reading competence maybedeveloped fromacognitive theoryofreading. These measuresgobeyond themeredescription ofcommon readingtests;they permittheexaminernotonly to say that someone is having difficulties learning to read but also to suggest what might be done about the problem. As indicated by this book's subtitle, such measures are both theoretically based and prescriptive. Several preliminary reading decoding and comprehension measures and their development are described in this book. These measures are not meant to be finaltest versions; further development isclearly necessary. To help readers who wish to get involved in this work, instructions and computerprograms for the reading measures are also included. Thus, readers with access to a micro computer can try out the measures for themselves. Vll Vlll PREFACE The book consists of nine chapters. The firstchapter is an introduction to thetopicscovered inthebook. Chapter 2isahistorical andconceptual overview ofreadingresearch.Chapter 3describes severalpopularapproaches tomeasuring reading skills and reviews the current state of the art. In Chapter 4, a tentative reading model based onrecent research isdeveloped. Chapters 5and 6 trace the development of encoding and comprehension measures, respectively, from the ory to practical instruments. Chapter 7 shows how the measures may be used to develop individualized instruction programs. Future test development and improved teaching techniques are the subject of Chapter 8. Descriptions of the computer programs underlying the tests appear inChapter 9. The chapter's goal istomakethemeasuresavailable tothoseeducators withevenmodestcomputing facilities. For this reason, the programs have been written to be as general as possible. Nevertheless, theywillhavetobemodifiedinordertorunoncomputers other than the Cromemco system for which they were written. This book is written for the professional educator, teacher, counselor, reading specialist, reading student, and anyone else concerned with reading. I have assumed that readers are familiar with current educational practices and research methods, but itis not necessary tobe anexpert ineither fieldto follow thebook'svariousdiscussions. Newtermsareexplained andresearch techniques are described in detail. Atvarious times indoing the research for this book, Ihave been aided by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.A.), the Educational Research and Development Committee (Australia), and the Australian Research Grants Scheme. My students and colleagues have been of invaluable help in collecting and analyzing data, researching articles, criticizing earlier drafts, and doing the various chores that go into writing a book. I am particularly grateful toTim Griffin, Christine Butler-Smith, and Tim Wiedel for collecting much of the data reported in this book. I am also indebted to Judy Brown, who wrote the computer programs described in Chapter 9. Finally, I must express my gratitude to my family, who put up with a lot. STEVEN SCHWARTZ CONTENTS PARTI. INTRODUCTION Chapter 1. THE PROBLEMWITHREADINGTESTS 3 Operationalism andUnderstanding.............................. 3 Norm-Referenced versusCriterion-Referenced Tests ............... 4 ValidityandTheory 5 OrganizationofThisBook.................................... 6 Summary ....... ............. ... .. ...... .. ..... ........... 7 PARTII. THECURRENTSCENE Chapter2. READING RESEARCH ANDTHEORY: HISTORYANDPRESENT STATUS......................... 11 InstructionalInfluences onReadingMeasurementandResearch...-,.. 12 Neurophysiological and Neuroanatomical InfluencesonReading MeasurementandResearch 19 Psychological Influenceson ReadingMeasurementandResearch. .... 33 Summary 38 Chapter3. READING TESTS TODAY. .............................. 40 WhatMakesaGoodTest?.................................... 41 ConstructingReadingTests 48 FormalReadingTests:TypesandUses. ......................... 59 InformalReadingInventoriesandOtherReadingTests. ............ 70 Summary 76 ix x CONTENTS Chapter 4. INFORMATION-PROCESSING SKILLS INREADING . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Reading from an Information-Processing Perspective. ............. 81 Sources of Individual Differences: Decoding Skills ............... 88 Sources of Individual Differences: Comprehension Skills 99 Outline of a Model of Decoding and Comprehension 104 Summary 110 PART III. THEORETICALLY BASED READING MEASURES Chapter 5. THEORETICALLY BASED DECODING MEASURES . . . . . .. . ... 113 Long-Term Memory Access Speed. ........................... 114 WordDecoding ............................................ 128 Memory forOrder. ......................................... 141 The Decoding Battery ....................................... 149 Summary 151 Chapter 6. A THEORETICALLY BASED COMPREHENSION MEASURE. . . . . 152 Background andRationale ................................... 153 Sentence ComprehensionTest. ............................... 157 Validity of the Test Battery .................................. 165 Implications of the Reading Model 169 Summary 171 PART IV. TESTING AND INSTRUCTION Chapter 7. ApPLICATIONS OFTESTS INREADING INSTRUCTION. . . . . . . . 175 TeachingReading .......................................... 176 Remedial Reading Instruction................................. 183 Test-Guided Instruction. ..................................... 192 Summary ........... .... .... ... ..... ...... ....... 201 Chapter 8. WHATTHEFUTURE HOLDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Theory .. ... .............. ... .... ... .... ............... ... 202 Testing ................................................... 207 Teaching 212 Summary ................................................. 217 CONTENTS xi PART V. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Chapter 9. SPECIFICATIONSFOR IMPLEMENTINGTHETESTS. . . . . . . .. .. 221 Hardware ................................................. 221 Software.................................................. 223 REFERENCES. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 AUTHORINDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . ... 333 SUBJECTINDEX. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
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