Assessing reading

Assessing Reading... For Real

I think we have all supposed students know how to read when they come into our classrooms, and why not? how difficult is it? if they read in Spanish, they sure know how to read in English, right? This skill feels so natural to us that we never stop to think about all the cognitive processes that co-exist behind it, and so we end up being so unfair to our students, sometimes they don't even know how to read in their native language!

W forget that reading implies not only putting letters and words together but the understanding of what is being read and the strategies used to reach such understanding; there is a set of micro and macroskills we use without even knowing we do. 

 

At reading Brown's (2000) chapter on assessing reading, which is "the most essential skill for success on all educational contexts..." I have come to realize all the terrible job I have been doing at assessing my poor students who have encountered the least meaningful, unauthentic reading tasks. I had never stop to carefully think of the criterion and principles an assessment task should meet! Authenticity, reliability, validity and washback were not in the back of my mind at planning a task; practicality, however, was always one of the main concerns. 

As fundamental as this skill is in the learning process, as difficult it is to assess since it has an "unobservable nature" (Brown, 2012); how do we know that a learner is "reading" ? how do we know, for sure, that they are comprehending what is in front of them? is it possible to know if, and when they are using top-down and bottom-up processing? and if they are, how do we realize if they are using them on the right moment, with the right type?

I am pretty sure that we can all spend a little longer of our time and come up with tasks that are meaningful for our students, that catch their attention, that emulate real life and awake their creativity, their critical thinking!  Tasks that meet, at least, the principles of washback, validity, and authenticity, that are more within our hands than reliability sometimes is; I would even dare saying that it is worth to sacrifice some practicality, at least at early stages, to make sure our students are learning how to read, are comprehending, and acquiring the skills to  reach full understanding. 

Finally and more importantly, I think we should establish some system in which students are required to read regularly, a reading club, a monthly debate about a book, etc. We can help them realize reading is such a wonderful activity! we all have that one book that made us dream, imagine, cry, and laugh; that awoke the passion for opening a book and feeling the smell of the pages, and their texture (the older the better!), that we couldn't stop reading, and we felt so thorn for reaching the end: the ambiguity of wanting to reach the climax of the story but the dreadful, devastating feeling of it being over. In this globalized world where video games, T.V's, and internet are the ultimate parenting tool, it is necessary to be the means through which children connect, and see the wonder and the joy of reading.

 

DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

 

 When I first started reading Brown's chapter on designing language tests, I thought it would be a "boring" manual on how to fail and/or promote your students, after all, what is there to know about tests? how difficult can it be to throw some questions, accommodate some multiple choices items, create a word-puzzle? what could be so complicated or important on a quizz that needs a whole chapter?! well, to my surprise there is a whole world of information and right, meaningful ways to assess our students that I as a teacher had no knowledge about.

First of all, and specifically, we must design tests, quizzes, assessment tasks that provide our students with washback; this is the main reason for assessing, rather than assigning a grade and have them pass or fail a course. It is also necessary to analyze everything students should know or be able to do at a certain stage of the learning process and based on those objectives, we must start planning activities that provide learners with real life uses of the language, natural conversations that create a meaningful and interesting context for them. Moreover, we need to make sure we know what kind of skills we want our students to be able to display, do we want them to write perfect essays? do we want to be effective speakers? so we can create the right assessing tools that are consistent with the tasks and exercises used during the whole course.

Secondly, teachers should be aware that feedback is the real reason why we assessed students. It is not enough to provide a number or a letter grade if they are not told about their weaknesses and strengths, it would not represent any gain for them. The testing experience should allow learners to identify their areas of success and challenge, this should be, ultimately, a learning experience.