CHALLENGES WHEN ASSESSING READING
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"Even when we are bombarded with an undenying supply of visual media and auditory media, the written word continues in its function to convey information, to amuse and entertain us, to codify our social, economic, and legal conventions and to fulfill a host of other functions" (Brown, 2000) When reading this quote this reminded me of my experience at one airport for the first time. I was completely lost and, therefore, scared, untill, I saw my salvation: Information signs! My ability of reading helped me get through that situation. And like that, reading gives us a number of opportunities to access new information.
Now, knowing the importance of reading, and helping our students to find proper strategies and ways of developing this skill, there is a big challenge in front of us. How to assess it?
Certainly, many are the factors which make assessing reading a challenge; I will focus this entry on one which is define in one word: Schemata
Brown (2000) defines schemata as background information and cultural experience. This represents a challenge. When learning a second language we are also getting closer to a set of different cultural aspects; but, students bring their own cultural background. I think the challenge is presented when assessing reading specially interactive and extensive reading. Two different students may bring different ideas and comprehend a text differently. In addition to that, we as teachers bring our own. the challenge is to guide our students by presenting them not only texts but the proper schemata, and so, when assessing, having a clear idea of what are the goals we want our students to achieve and taking into account what our students bring to the text.
My strategy would be having a rubric which does not limit to "correct" answers, but that is directed to the analytical abilities of the students. Now, dear partners, what would be your ideas?
Hey Zulma, the idea you propose about a rubric that it is focused on the analytical abilities is great, because we most of the times see how teachers try to impose their own point of view and what the students think is not correct for them. I think the matter is not identifying specific structures or words inside a text, I think the challenge is teaching our students to criticize the texts and go beyond.Apart of what you suggest, I believe that make them to suggest alternative ends, if we talk about narrative texts, or giving their own points of view about what they think the author's intention is can be other ways to get the schemata factor you shared. Thank you very much for showing your idea.
ResponderEliminarTwo children might obtain the same score on a measure of reading comprehension but might arrive at that score in very different ways. Therefore teachers should use more than one test to assess reading comprehension performance. An average of scores across two or three tests may give a more accurate indicator of current reading comprehension performance in some cases. Differences in performance across tests, and possible reasons for those differences, should also be considered.
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