Kelly Bruce

Examining the Relationship Between Word Reading Efficiency and Oral Reading Rate in Predicting Comprehension Among Different Types of Readers

To further explore contextual reading rate, an important aspect of reading fluency, we examined the relationship between word reading efficiency (WRE) and contextual oral reading rate (ORR), the degree to which they overlap across different comprehension measures, whether oral language (semantics and syntax) predicts ORR beyond contributions of word-level skills, and whether the WRE–ORR relationship varies based on different reader profiles. Assessing reading and language of average readers, poor decoders, and poor comprehenders, ages 10 to 14, ORR was the strongest predictor of comprehension across various formats; WRE contributed no unique variance after taking ORR into account. Findings indicated that semantics, not syntax, contributed to ORR. Poor comprehenders performed below average on measures of ORR, despite average WRE, expanding previous findings suggesting specific weaknesses in ORR for this group. Together, findings suggest that ORR draws upon skills beyond those captured by WRE and suggests a role for oral language (semantics) in ORR.

Middle School Reading Assessment: Measuring What Matters Under a RTI Framework

This article presents a prototype reading assessment designed to measure and support component and integrated reading skills. The work is motivated by the need to create a new generation of assessments that are better aligned with the research in cognitive science, reading and learning. An assessment that synthesizes advances in these areas may prove to be more useful for educators to make informed decisions about who needs help, what help is needed, and whether the help is effective. This article describes our initial efforts to conceptualize, prototype, and test aspects of our framework in light of Response to Intervention.

PIAAC Reading Component: A Conceptual Framework

Governments and other stakeholders have become increasingly interested in assessing the skills of their adult populations in order to examine how well prepared they are to meet the challenges of the modern knowledge-based society. The current paper provides a conceptual framework for the assessment of reading component skills in the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The assessment of component skills is intended to provide a greater level of information about the skills of individuals with low levels of literacy proficiency than has been available from previous international assessments. The ‘component skills ’identified for the assessment are vocabulary knowledge, sentence processing and passage comprehension. Les pouvoirs publics et autres parties prenantes s’interessent de plus en plus a l’evaluation des competences de la population adulte dans un objectif de suivi de son etat de preparation face aux defis de la societe moderne de la connaissance. Le present article fournit un cadre conceptuel pour les elements de lecture du Programme pour l’evaluation internationale des competences des adultes (PIAAC). S’appuyant sur les principes et processus de base de la lecture, il definit les competences a l’ecrit ainsi que les tâches de l’evaluation afin de permettre une meilleure comprehension des savoir-faire en lecture inherents a des niveaux eleves de comprehension des textes. Ce cadre cherche a creer une evaluation qui assure la comparabilite entre les pays et qui etablisse une idee plus claire de ce que signifient les profils de lecture des adultes en haut de l’echelle des competences en comprehension des textes.