Assessing reading: How assessment can be used to target teaching and enhance understanding of reading comprehension

The skills demonstrated by a proficient reader are not easy to untangle. Current research acknowledges that reading comprehension is a highly complex area of ability, one that needs to be understood as the coordination of several integrated processes. Using example test questions and data, this presentation explores how assessment can help us make sense of reading comprehension in a way that curricula and commonly used teaching strategies cannot. Assessment is evidence that informs us about the skills involved in the reading process, how they relate to each other, and how they develop in complexity. When assessment is understood in this way, as much more than a tool to compare a student’s ability with that of their peers, it can be used to identify the actual skills individual students are consolidating and which specific steps will help their development.