Remote Dyslexia Screening for Bilingual Children

Ideally, language and reading skills in bilingual children are assessed in both languages spoken in order to avoid misdiagnoses of communication or learning disorders. Due to limited capacity of clinical and educational staff, computerized screenings that allow for automatic evaluation of the children’s performance on reading tasks (accuracy and speed) might pose a useful alternative in clinical and school settings. In this study, a novel web-based screening platform for language and reading assessment is presented. This tool has been preliminarily validated with monolingual Italian, Mandarin–Italian and English–Italian speaking primary school children living and schooled in Italy. Their performances in the screening tasks in Italian and—if bilingual—in their native language were compared to the results of standardized/conventional reading assessment tests as well as parental and teacher questionnaires. Correlations revealed the tasks that best contributed to the identification of risk for the presence of reading disorders and showed the general feasibility and usefulness of the computerized screening. In a further step, both screening administrators (Examiners) and child participants (Examinees) were invited to participate in usability studies, which revealed general satisfaction and provided suggestions for further improvement of the screening platform. Based on these findings, the potential of the novel web-based screening platform is discussed.

The Effects of Transitional Bilingual Education vs. Dual Language Immersion on English Language Learners' Reading Assessment Scores

This action research study was completed in a North Texas school district where English language learners comprised 52% of the K-12 student population during the 2015-2016 academic school year. Data from a campus which used a two-way dual language immersion (DLI) program and another campus which used a transitional bilingual education (TBE) program were evaluated. The study analyzed the district's third to fifth grade reading assessment results of 128 students from the DLI campus and 223 from the TBE campus. Researchers compared the scores of students in each program to determine if one bilingual model produced higher scores than another. The results showed that there were greater gains for ELLs in the TBE program at all grade levels (third to fifth). Although the TBE program resulted in higher student scores, limitations make it unclear to what degree the program impacted students' achievement.

Studi Fenomenologi: Penilaian Membaca dalam Pembelajaran Bahasa Indonesia di Sekolah Menengah Atas Pekanbaru

Reading assessment is a form of assessment activity carried out by educators in assessing students' reading. This study uses a phenomenological approach to explore teachers' experiences as participants in learning to read stories, read poetry and read descriptive texts in developing reading assessments. This study involved 15 Indonesian language teachers and conducted in-depth interviews about reading assessments in schools. The theories used in this research are Setiadi (2016), Abdul (2003), Tarigan (1994), Yunus (2012), Tampubolon (2015), Razak (2001), Nurhayati (2009), Djiwandono (2011), and the theory of Burhan Nurgiyantoro (2014). In-depth interview analysis in this study shows that the assessment of reading saga pays attention to the assessment of speech sounds, words, sentences, letters, language, readings, pays attention to reading pauses, sentence breaks, paragraph breaks, sentence content, letter content, punctuation marks, appreciates the content. In contrast, the construction of poetry reading assessment includes the assessment of diction sounds, sounds, letters, sentences, rhymes, rhythms, stanzas, the figure of speech, confidence, language style, appreciation. Descriptive text-based assessment is to assess the accuracy of diction (use of vocabulary, conjunctions between sentences, clarity of language sounds); the assessment of the accuracy of the sentence structure of the reading pays attention to 3 assessments, namely the arrangement of sentence patterns, stringing sentences and the form of sentences used; and assessing the spelling and writing used including the assessment of punctuation, use of capital letters. Educators can use this research recommendation on the construction of reading assessment in high school in the concept of reading assessment in schools.

Need analysis on the usage of multimodal reading assessment among secondary school teachers

Strategically developed assessment rubrics are essential to ascertain fair and consistent assessment grading. Nevertheless, devising assessment rubrics poses certain drawbacks as scores that determine students’ capability are awarded holistically. In order to assure that students’ grades indeed reflect their current capability and to provide effective feedback on aspects that demand improvement, rubrics must accurately evaluate and measure the performances displayed by students. Hence, this study identified the suitability and acceptability of multimodal reading assessment upon assessing reading skills among secondary school students. This study, which involved English language teachers from several schools located across Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, had adopted the survey research method to design a multimodal reading assessment rubric and to obtain teachers’ views on multimodal reading and viewing (MMRV). The study outcomes signified that although the teachers acknowledged and were aware of the advantages of applying MMRV, the absence of such rubric that specifically assesses MMRV seemed to limit this practice in classroom. This study concludes that it is imperative to formulate a comprehensive MMRV-based rubric to enable teachers assess their students’ reading skills in a more accurate manner.

Always at the Bottom: Ideologies in Assessment of Emergent Bilinguals

Recent scholarship has identified how the reading assessment process can be improved by adapting to and accounting for emergent bilinguals’ multilingual resources. While this work provides guidance about how teachers can take this approach within their assessment practices, this article strengthens and builds on this scholarship by combining translanguaging and raciolinguistic lenses to examine the ideologies that circulate through assessment. By comparing interview data from English as a new language and dual-language bilingual teachers, we found that while reading assessments fail to capture the complexity of all emergent bilinguals’ reading abilities, they particularly marginalize emergent bilinguals of color. Thus, we expose the myths of neutrality and validity around reading assessment and demonstrate how they are linked to ideologies about race and language. We offer a critical translingual approach to professional learning that encourages teachers to grapple with these ideologies and shift toward a more critical implementation of reading assessments.

Why state reading tests are poor benchmarks of student success

At the end of each school year, starting in third grade, students are administered standardized assessments of reading achievement. In most contexts, these assessments have become benchmarks for student success. In this article, I argue that while these tests are commonplace, they are unfair assessments for students, teachers, and schools. An alternative approach involving curriculum-based assessment has been introduced to address the inadequacies of current high-stakes testing of reading. I highlight this approach to reading assessment and conclude that it is more appropriate and equitable for students, teachers, and schools.

Teacher Engagement With Technology-Enhanced Text Adaptation for Reading Assessment

In the assessment of English as a foreign language (EFL) reading proficiency, text adaptation is an important and challenging task for teachers. Although an increasing number of technology tools are available to facilitate text adaptation, research exploring how teachers engage with technology-enhanced text adaptation (TETA) is scarce. Drawing on a three-dimension framework consisting of behavioral, cognitive, and affective criteria of engagement, this case study investigated four Chinese EFL teachers' engagement with TETA facilitated by Eng-Editor, an online text complexity evaluation tool, in preparing reading assessment materials. Data from multiple sources were collected in the study. Firstly, the teachers' original and adapted texts were analyzed to reveal their behavioral engagement. Secondly, individual interviews were conducted with each teacher to unveil their cognitive and affective engagement. Results show diverse characteristics of teacher engagement with TETA along the three-dimension framework; moreover, various factors that influenced their engagement are also revealed. The paper concludes by providing suggestions for designing training programs to support teachers' employment of TETA.

What Does “Below Basic” Mean on NAEP Reading?

The fourth-grade 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading assessment shows that 34% of the nation’s students perform below the NAEP Basic level. However, because there is no achievement-level description for below Basic, educators and policymakers lack information on the nature of the reading difficulties that these students face. To help fill this gap, we analyze data from the 2018 NAEP Oral Reading Fluency study. We find that, compared with students who perform at the NAEP Basic level and above, students who perform below NAEP Basic level are much more likely to have poor oral reading fluency and word reading skills.

The Realization of Brown’s Theory of Assessing Reading on Reading Section of English National Examination

This study is concerned with the realization of Brown’s theory of assessing reading on the English national examination. This study focused on the English national examination for junior high schools in the academic year 2018/2019. It aimed to know what types of assessing reading were used and what the most dominant types were used on the English national examination based on the realization of Brown’s theory. The qualitative approach was employed. The method of analysis used was descriptive research. Based on the data analysis, there was only one type of the four types of reading assessment which was implemented on the English national examination. It was interactive reading. The tasks which were used in interactive reading are impromptu reading plus comprehension question as many as 49 questions which are included in 17 texts and ordering tasks as many as 1 question which was included into 1 text. All of them were spread into 17 texts. The most dominant type of assessing reading was interactive reading (50 questions) which consisted of 49 questions of impromptu reading plus comprehension questions and 1 question of ordering tasks.