Testing Reading: Product versus Process

An argument against the notion that reading is merely a subject. The answers provided by a testee on a reading test are assumed to represent a student's ability in reading, and instructors treat the product as the determinant of how he or she reads. Unless teachers ask why and how, there is no...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Reading teacher 1972-01, Vol.26 (3), p.303-304
Main Author: Robinson, H. Alan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Orthographies
Reading
Reading teachers
Silent reading
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:An argument against the notion that reading is merely a subject. The answers provided by a testee on a reading test are assumed to represent a student's ability in reading, and instructors treat the product as the determinant of how he or she reads. Unless teachers ask why and how, there is no way of helping readers learn, correct, and adapt strategies for using reading to understand and evaluate the messages of writers. The field of psycholinguistics holds promise for the development of process tests that focus on the process of reading rather than on the product. Expertise from many directions is needed in addition to the insights gained from psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics: knowledgeable people in measurement, psychology, linguistics, sociology, language development, and reading must converge on the problem. Information is needed in relation to: (1) the changing nature of the learner (social backgrounds, dialects and language flexibility, group and individual experiences, and personalities); (2) the material to be read (newness to the learner, complexity, and styles of writing); and (3) purposes for reading (overview, specific information to follow the author's thinking, and enjoy the story). Unfortunately, little information is available about the interactions of these important concepts. Just as the advent of standardized silent reading tests in the 20s had a profound influence on instruction, perhaps the time is ripe in the 70s for process oriented reading tests to be developed.
ISSN:0034-0561