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Reading ComprehensionReading comprehension can be defined as the level of understanding of a passage or text. For normal reading rates (around 200-220 words per minute) an acceptable level of comprehension is above 75%. Reading comprehension can be improved by: Training the ability to self assess comprehension, actively test comprehension using questionnaires, and by improving metacognition. Teaching conceptual and linguistic knowledge is also advantageous. Self assessment can be conducted by summarizing, and elaborative interrogation, and those skills will gradually become more automatic through practice. Reading Comprehension Testing Comprehension testing is very useful in improving reading comprehension. Not only because it gives the teacher a measure of progress, but it supplements the reader's perception of their own ability. Learning reader's commonly fail to accurately assess their own comprehension. A comprehension test can accelerate their ability to self assess their own comprehension levels as they progress. However, a poorly constructed reading comprehension test can deceive the learner and disturb progress. Indeed, it has been found that poorly constructed tests often train the reader to mis-assess their own reading performance. Reading comprehension is best tested using carefully constructed questions which quiz natural, or non-concocted passages of text. The questions themself can be requests to summarize, open ended questions, Cloze formats, and carefully constructed multiple choice questions. The multiple choice format must use questions that quiz the overall meanings of the text, the details and the most important meaning of the words. The background of the reader must be taken into account, for example, if an answer is general knowledge, then it will not measure the comprehension of the passage, but the memory of that knowledge. Likewise, the questions should not give clues to the answers of other questions. In this way it makes the multiple choice format hard to devise. References - Harris and Sipay (1990) How to Increase Reading Ability. Longman
- Perfetti (1995) Reading Ability New York:Oxford University Press
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