Measuring Reading Competence

Measuring Reading Competence

This book concerns measuring reading skills. It is not meant to be a compre hensive survey of reading research or a review of all possible approaches to reading measurement (although considerable attention is given to both subjects). Instead, the purpose of this book is to present a coherent, theoretically based approach to measuring reading competence. The ability to measure a phenomenon is an important prerequisite for scientific analysis. As Lord Kelvin said, "One's knowledge of science begins when he can measure what he is speaking about and express it in numbers." Unfortunately, not just any numbers will do. Presently available reading tests provide their users with a plethora of numbers-age levels, percentiles, grade equivalents-but their scientific value is questionable. The problem is that there is more to scientific measurement than merely assigning numbers to arbitrarily chosen behaviors. Scientific measurement occurs only within the confines of a theory, and most reading tests are atheoretical. Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth in reading research.

Measuring Reading Competence

The Role of Fluency in Reading Competence, Assessment, and instruction

First published in 2001. This is a special issue Volume 5, Number 3, from 2001 of Scientific Studies of Reading that looks at the DNA of reading fluency in scientific inquiry accounts. The contributors offer a selection of essays seeks to establish that that fluent reading is plainly developmental and represents an outcome of well-specified sub lexical and lexical processes and skills developed for most children over a bounded period of pedagogical time, rather than in just the school setting.