A MODELING

OF READING STRATEGIES INTO

THE READING PROCESS FROM A

METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

ARGEMIRO AMAYA BUELVASEspecialista en ELT

C. Magister in Education

Reference

Alderson, J.C. (2000) Assessing reading. (pp. 85-115). C.U.P

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Research into the assessment of reading.FACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF READING TEST ITEMS

FACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF READING TEST TEXTS Background knowledge Vs Text Content Text length

A reading comprehension exercise: A Young, Blind Whiz on Computers

Reading Strategy “Inferring”

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Reference

Alderson, J.C. (2000) Assessing reading. (pp. 85-115). C.U.P

TECHNIQUES FOR TESTING READINGChapter Seven

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Conclusions

Background Knowledge versus Text Content

1.Testing Techniques and Background knowledge have a great effect on test scores.

2.Content familiarity may enable linguistic skills and reading comprehension skills.

3.Students do not necessarily do better on materials in their own academic field.

4.Is Language level a better predictor than knowledge of the subject area?

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

FACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF READING TEST TEXTS

Background knowledge Vs Text Content

Stone inscriptions from ancient Athens and Attica

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Shohamy (1984) cited in Alderson (p.102) showed that the text had a significant effect on test scores.

Background Knowledge versus Text Content

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Whether these texts were based on: Multiple-choice questions or open-ended questions Questions were presented in L1 or the L2

“subject-related texts might also discriminate against

individuals who happen to possess less background

knowledge in a particular field” (p.103).

Background Knowledge versus Text Content

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Background Knowledge versus Text Content

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

“Erickson and Molly (1983) study suggests that facilitating effect of content familiarity may extend to enabling linguistic skills to be better deployed and displayed” (p.103) yes, but…

Background Knowledge versus Text Content

Hock (1990) cited in alderson (2000. p.103-104)

Which one is the best predictor towards reading comprehension ?

a)Familiarity with test content (knowledge of the subject area)b) or level of language proficiency.

“Students do not necessarily do better on materials in their own academic field” Moy (1975), koh (1985) and Perez and Shoham (1990)

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Alderson (2000. p.108-109) A problem all reading-test developers face is how long the texts should be on which they base their tests.

Text Length

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Engineer (1997) “texts longer than 1.000 words were used, the abilities that could be measured changed”.

Text Length

“The ability to identify the main idea of long texts might be thought to be qualitatively different from the ability to identify the man idea in shorter texts ”.

“Testing for academic purposes, is that this practice reflects more closely the situation where students have to read and study long texts ”.

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Text Length

“Long texts allow testers to assess syntactic and lexical knowledge more than discourse processing abilities..

It is also likely to be much easier to measure reading speed using longer texts than with a number of short passages with associated questions” Alderson (p.108-109)

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Text Length

SHORT TEXTS

Abilities are qualitatively better measured.

LONG TEXTS

Abilities are qualitatively different.

Better for testing academic purposes- Syntactic knowledge- Lexical knowledge- Background knowledge

Measure reading speed.

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

SUMMARYWe have explored variables that affect the assessment of reading in a first and second language. The influence of both the questioning set and the passages on

which comprehension is assessed.The implications of difficulty of a reading test towards the

relationship between text and items.The language of the questions, their wording and the frequency

of the vocabulary used.The relationship between the question and the required

information in the text are clearly crucial.Item testing reading comprehension and those testing what

might be called linguistic skills is something to be bore in mind when designing reading tests.

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

SUMMARY

We have explored variables that affect the assessment of reading in a first and second language. Whether vocabulary knowledge is felt to be a relevant or a

contaminating variable in reading assessment is an important consideration.

Text topic clearly has an important effect on comprehension, and especially in the extent to which it engages background knowledge.

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

THANK YOU

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language.

Previous Slide

Text Length

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

LET’S THINK ABOUT IT…

A teacher of English is teaching reading comprehension to some engineer students. Though, he/she brings a reading of this particular field in English.

1. Why do you think he/she did it?2. Is it correct or not? Why? 3. What is he/she evaluating?

Techniques for Testing ReadingBackground Knowledge versus Text Content

‘test method’, ‘test technique’ and ‘test format’

•The cloze test and gap-filling tests•Multiple-choice techniques•Matching techniques•Ordering tasks•Editing tests

• The C-test• The cloze elide test• Short answers tests• The free recall test• The summary test• The gapped summary• Information transfer

techniques

See a range of different objective and subjective techniques

A MODELING OF READING STRATEGIES INTO THE READING PROCESS FROM A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE