Components of Chinese Reading Comprehension Placement Test for Singapore Primary School Students

Abstract

This study investigated the types of reading comprehension questions that better discriminate between students of high and weak Chinese reading comprehension abilities in junior elementary grades. A total of 127 Primary 1 and Primary 3 students took part in this study. As the placement test was long, it was group into three smaller tests (L1, L2, and L3) for students with high, medium, and low reading comprehension abilities. Placement test scores were correlated with their Chinese language exam scores to find out if the placement test could accurately differentiate students with different reading comprehension abilities. Performance on each question was also analyzed to find out if they were good discriminators. Results indicate that placement test scores correlated significantly with school exam scores. Hence, there is evidence to support the claim that the placement test could discriminate between students with varying reading comprehension abilities. Moreover, question difficulty indices and question discrimination indices showed that questions that require high level of discourse processing ability were good discriminators for older, higher-ability students. Index Terms-Chinese reading comprehension, placement test, discourse processing, learning of mother tongue.

The Influence of Cooperative Intergerative Reading and Composition (CIRC) and Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review (SQ3R) on Ability Reading Comprehension of Elementary School

“…So this method is considered appropriate to be used to improve reading comprehension skills in fourth grade students of Muhammadiyah Gunungpring Muntilan. [1] Many students have not been able to understand the context of their reading, [2] Ability to read students' understanding is not maximized, [3] Teachers have not tried to encourage students to read using Cooperative Intergroup Reading and Composition (CIRC) and Survey Question Read Review and Recite (SQ3R) methods to eliminate saturation in students in reading comprehension learning. ICMEd…”