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Principles of Reading Comprehension Test

Principles of Reading Comprehension Test summarizes key considerations for developing valid and reliable reading comprehension tests. It discusses selecting appropriate text based on students' interests, cognitive levels, and linguistic competence. Test length, formats, and scoring methods should vary based on the level of learners. While there is no consensus on best practices, reading comprehension tests generally assess word recognition, comprehension of words in context, and other reading subskills through various question types tailored to different proficiency levels. The goal is to accurately measure reading ability in a way that is authentic yet not overly difficult or time-consuming for test-takers.

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165 views4 pages

Principles of Reading Comprehension Test

Principles of Reading Comprehension Test summarizes key considerations for developing valid and reliable reading comprehension tests. It discusses selecting appropriate text based on students' interests, cognitive levels, and linguistic competence. Test length, formats, and scoring methods should vary based on the level of learners. While there is no consensus on best practices, reading comprehension tests generally assess word recognition, comprehension of words in context, and other reading subskills through various question types tailored to different proficiency levels. The goal is to accurately measure reading ability in a way that is authentic yet not overly difficult or time-consuming for test-takers.

Uploaded by

Iqra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Principles of Reading Comprehension Test

Testing is basically procedure for measuring knowledge, ability or performance of


the test taker in particular area or field in which the test is conducted. Reading
skill is one of the most important and critical skills in language learning, especially
for second language learners , testing reading comprehension is very important
for language learning and improvement of understanding and comprehension of
text , vocabulary and pronunciation of that particular language. Many high stake
exams IELTS, TOFEL and TOIC give high importance to reading comprehension
ability.

The main focus of these tests is on two things, word recognition in a test and
comprehension of that word or phrase in the paragraph, two essential things in
language learning and understanding. All the test conductor institutions and high
stake exam bodie focus on these things.

Principles of making test for reading comprehension are quite similar with
vocabulary testing principles, validity , reliability and authenticity of the slected
text are much needed points ( Hetherington 1985). Test selection should be
according to the level of learners and according to their cognitive level, and it
must be different for different levels. Test length is another major principle for
test setting, which also differs according to level of learners, adminstration time
and test items and tools are designed for all different cognitive levels differently.

Reading narrations in front of the test maker would be considered as direct


source of assessment and other indirect test items are also involved.

Test selection depends upon two factors, students and text. Students interest,
level of cognition, needs and text's political and cultural suitability,
readability,topic, genre and students' linguistic competence matters the most in
designing a comprehension reading test.

To test main reading skills and other sub skills relating reading comprehension
some test items are suggested usually by different researchers. Reading aloud,
reading and translation, skimming , scanning and reading literature can be used as
tools and test items for knowing reading comprehension ability. Important sub
skills also test with reading skill like pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical
structure and linguistic competence.

According to Arias (2007) material selection should be based on students'


professional setting and related with their real world situation this hypothesis was
created on he statement of Nutall (1996) text should be fit, match and delightful
for the test taker. If the material will be selected from the real world situation
then the understanding level of the students would increase and they would be
able to comprehend the text easily and would respond the way in the required
way.

One of the most prominent and important rule and principle in reading
comprehension tests is taking material from specified genres for different
learners according to their level. Brown (2004) suggested some text types i.e
books, different poems ,text books, newspaper articles , journals , dictionaries,
letters, encyclopedias, advertisement signs, maps, novels and short stories can be
taken as text for test, but selection of text from these sources entirely depends
upon academic and cognitive level.

There are some categories in reading comprehension test and tests are
conducted based on these categories, descriptive, expository, argumentative and
narrative, scores and abilities of students in these tests varied remarkably from
each other, some are good at just narrative tests , others score good in descriptive
tests, a few students also show their excellence in argumentative tests but the
researches shows that the second language learners manage to get highe scores
in narrative tests, because they do not have sufficient reading practice that they
could perform well in descriptive or argumentative tests. The students' high score
in narrative test type shows that the L2 learners' reading ability varied according
to the text types.

With respect to the relationship between reading comprehension ability and text
length Alderson (2000) asserts that all test developers face problem while
deciding how long the test should be for different levels of learners. According to
him test length and test time is still an unresearched area. There is an institution
that the longer the passage the difficult the test will be. Test may be comprised of
a single word or a single phrase ( public notices or warnings) , single statement as
written for the purpose of advertisement, whole novel or a story, but this could
be more difficult as compared to statement and phrases.

Different researchers recommended different test length patterns, Heaton (1975)


recommended different passage length according to different level of learners ,
he said that 50 to 100 ,200 to 300, 400 to 500 words for primary, elementary and
advance levels respectively. Test length depends on genre too. High stake exam
bodies like IELTS uses 3 paragraphs, GRE uses 1-5 paragraphs and TOFEL uses 3-4
paragraphs.

Test formats , test tools or test types also vary according to the level of learners, a
number of testing techniques for testing reading comprehension like cloze tests,
multiple choice questions, picture cued and paragraph reading are used by
different institutions and test agencies. Pictures cued and word matching for
elementary level, matching tests for intermediate and for advance level learners
miscellaneous items, cursory readings and cloze procedure are recommended.
MCQs are considered as best from all these but there is a one problem with these
is that they are subjectively designed and marked. Multiple and cloze tests are
used in reading comprehension tests of IELTS, GRE and TOEFL.

There is also an unending debate on administration time for reading


comprehension tests, different researches have different results and for both L2
and L1 language learners the time would be different for test. According to TORC
given time should be 20, 30 to 45 minutes for students age ranging from 11 to 17.

Difference exam bodies and institutions has their own standards ,methods and
charts for scoring, IELTS covert marks into Bands from 1 to 9 an other exam body
range their scores from Band 1 to Band 6 and for schools students in Malaysia 1
to 6 Bands are used to assigned from year 7 to 11.

In the light of facts stated above we can say that to check the reading ability and
its related sub skills we need to make tests keeping in mind some parameters
which determine the accuracy, authenticity and reliability of the test required text
must be selected according to the level and interest of the students, and text
length should not be long that would distract the students from their original goal
, test formats, time and scoring should be according to the levels of learners and it
would make easy for examiner to test reading comprehension ability.

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