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Reading skills

Genres of reading

Developing reading tests

Points to be Criteria for text selection

Week 6: Testing covered Test specifications

Reading Writing tests

Criterial level of performance

Giving feedback

Reading skills Genres of reading

Readers can take control of the input more easily
Academic reading
• General interest articles (in magazines, newspapers)
Readers determine the speed of the activity
• Technical reports, professional journal articles
• Reference materials (e.g., dictionaries)
Reading skills seen in terms of ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ skills
• Textbooks , theses
• Bottom-up (systemic) skills: building up meaning from • Essays, papers
analyzing/decoding the form of the language used (from words to
clauses to sentences to paragraphs) • Test directions
• Top-down (schematic) skills: prior world knowledge (cultural or world • Editorials and opinion writing
knowledge) brought by the reader to the text

Genres of reading Genres of reading

Job-related reading Personal reading
• Newspapers and magazines
• Messages; Letters/emails; Memos
• Letters, emails, greeting cards, invitations, messages, notes, lists
• Reports (job evaluations, project reports) • Schedules (train, bus, plane)
• Schedules, labels, signs, announcements • Recipes, menus, maps, calendars
• Forms, applications, questionnaires • Advertisements (commercials, want ads)
• Financial documents (bills, invoices) • Novels, poetry
• Directories (telephone, office) • Financial documents (checks, tax forms, loan applications)
• Forms, questionnaires, medical reports, immigration documents
• Manuals, directions
• Comic strips, cartoons

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Stages of reading test development Categorizing skills

Specifying skills (what candidates
should be able to do) *****
Expeditious • Macrostructure of a text
Selecting texts (fast) • Top-down process
operations • Goal-orientation

Selecting tasks and/or items

• Close reading for detailed comprehension
Careful
• Bottom-up process
Writing test specifications operations • Submissive (docile) reader

Writing items/tasks

Read through the checklist of

different operations (Hughes, 2003). Make a list of considerations
Place them in three groups: Activity 2: in selecting texts for
Activity 1) higher order Criteria for designing reading
2) middle order text selection comprehension tests.
3) lower order
in terms of the level of ability or
strategy use implied.

Considerations in text selection Considerations in text selection

Text Intended
Text types Text forms Length Complexity
organizations readership

Graphic Range of Range of

Topics
features vocab grammar

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Notes on text selection Notes on text selection (cont.)

Should not bias anyone in terms of information
• Select a representative sample of texts
• Avoiding texts already read
• Appropriate length
• Avoid texts made up of information which may be part of
• Texts should cover all necessary operations
candidates’ general knowledge
• Choose texts which interest test-takers, but will not
• Avoiding texts which are culturally laden
overexcite or disturb them
• Texts and activities should mirror those in target situation

Statement of the problem

Specifications Writing items: test methods
Content
Multiple choice questions (MCQ)
• Operations,
• Types of texts,
• Addresses,
Gap filling
Constructing • Topics
Short answer questions
reading tests Format and timing
Matching
Sampling
Criterial levels of performance Diagram-labeling

Item and key writing True/False/Not given

Pretesting Summarizing

Choose the picture (A,B,C,D) which the following sentence describes:

MCQs The man with a dog was attacked in the street by a woman.

• Make a mark against one out of a number of alternatives

• Alternative responses are written or take the form of
illustrations

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Gap filling

Selective deletion gap filling

Example
Choose words from the following to fill in the
numbered gaps:
Down, morning, is, not, hello
- Good morning everybody.
- Good (1), sir.
- Sit (2) everybody. My name (3) Mr Hunt.

Gap filling Short answer questions (SAQs)

/ Open-ended reading comprehension questions
C-test
Example
James Watt was a great inventor who was born in
Britain in the 18th century. He was the inventor of the
steam engine.
Steam po— was t— first m— made po— used f—
transport. Bef— this inve— we h— to u— animal po—.

Short answer questions Matching

According to the author, what does the increase in divorce Vocabulary matching task
rates show about people’s expectations of marriage and
marriage partners?
Answer:
They (expectations) are greater (than in the past).

=> S has answer in his head after reading the text may
not be able to express it well.
=> guided short answers

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True / False / (Not given)

Diagram-labeling task

Summarizing

How to evaluate summaries? Procedures for test task design

Understanding the text

Taking notes of skills and features, main

points, interesting pieces of information,
stages of argument, examples, …

Writing items to match skills/tasks

Checking with colleagues for

moderation

Piloting and item analysis

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Practical advice on item writing

• Not to include items that some candidates are likely to be
able to answer without reading the text.
Moderation checklist
E.g. Inhaling smoke from other people’s cigarette can cause …

• Not to include items for which correct response can be

found without understanding the text (unless that is an
ability that you are testing).
I.e. Ss simply match a string of words in the question with the
same string in the text.

A note on scoring Giving feedback

Return the test to the student with one of the possibilities
Errors of grammar , spelling or punctuation should not be
below:
penalized because the function of a reading test is to test
• A letter grade
reading ability.
• A total score
• An indication of correct/incorrect responses
• Marginal comments
• A whole class discussion of the results of the test
• Individual conferences with each student to review the
whole test

Reference References
• Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Pages 136-159]