Through ESSA (2015) and IDEIA (2004), all students must participate in statewide assessments and students with disabilities are entitled to receive reasonable adaptations and accommodations in order to ensure that the assessments accurately measure their achievement within the designated academic areas. Research indicates that the provision of an…

This study examines whether scores from an interim reading assessment in grade 9, the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading--Florida Standards, can be used to identify students who may score below the college readiness benchmark on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and ACT Plan in grade 10. Using scores on an…

This report presents the findings of a rigorous experimental impact evaluation and implementation study of one such intervention, the Content Literacy Continuum (CLC), developed by researchers at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. This evaluation of CLC was conducted by three partnering organizations: REL Midwest, MDRC, and…

State tests, which assess reading comprehension, ask students to make inferences and connections beyond the text. The problem of practice in which this study is situated is that students are having difficulty making meaningful connections and developing inferences in relation to the material that is read aloud together in class or assigned for…

This report presents early findings from the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study--a demonstration and rigorous evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers. focuses on the first of two cohorts of ninth-grade students who will…

A technique for measuring comprehension of lengthy prose is presented. The "textual segmentation" procedure requires subjects to partition text into complete, meaningful units such as paragraphs, chapters, and books. Potential applications of textual segmentation include measurement of reading comprehension, readability, and criteria for…

This document presents a sample test form for high school reading and comprehension proficiency. The first section of the exam consists of 27 questions taken from 7 selections, which included 4 literature and poetry selections and the following nonfiction titles: Procedures for Answering a Call, Just the Facts, Garlic, and Pot Roast with…

Reviews recent research on reading comprehension and textbook content and provides examples of several instructional strategies designed to aid students in understanding textbook passages. (JDH)

This paper reports the results of an analysis of a reading comprehension test using the Q subscript 3 (Q3) statistics developed by W. Yen (1984). Yen's Q3 can be a useful tool for examining local item dependence in the context of a reading comprehension test in which a set of related items is followed by a reading passage. Q3 is basically a…

The main purpose of this study was to examine the structure of score categories in passage-based testlets in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading comprehension test using the nominal response model (NRM). The computer program MULTILOG (D. Thissen, 1991) was used to fit the full and 7 constrained versions of NRM to testlet scores of 1,857…

Certain kinds of multiple-choice reading comprehension questions may be answered correctly at the higher-than-chance level when they are administered without the accompanying passage. These high risk questions do not necessarily lead to passage dependence invalidity. They threaten but do not prove invalidity. (Author/CP)

Strategy use and its impact on standardized reading test performance were studied with 128 high school students. Students in a standardized test condition used more strategies than those asked merely to identify main ideas. Thinking aloud had detrimental effects on ability to identify main ideas. (SLD)

This document outlines the test and item specifications for the Washington Assessment of Student Learning for tenth grade reading. The purpose of this test is to measure Washington tenth grade students' level of proficiency in the Essential Academic Learning Requirements in reading. The reading test described in the document contains literary,…

The summary information in this report provides teachers, school administrators, students, and the general public in Alberta, Canada with an overview of results from the June 1998 administration of the English 30 Diploma Examination. The information in the report is most helpful when used in conjunction with the detailed school and jurisdiction…

In an effort to evaluate comprehension skills with a "real world" task, students were asked to summarize and respond to an excerpt from a college freshman textbook. The written responses of a group of both high school students (n=100) and college students (n=51) were analyzed through a checklist developed to assess students'…