Preliminary Reading Literacy Assessment Framework: Foundation and Rationale for Assessment and System Design

Abstract

Since its 1947 founding, ETS has conducted and disseminated scientific research to support its products and services, and to advance the measurement and education fields. In keeping with these goals, ETS is committed to making its research freely available to the professional community and to the general public. Published accounts of ETS research, including papers in the ETS Research Report series, undergo a formal peer-review process by ETS staff to ensure that they meet established scientific and professional standards. All such ETS-conducted peer reviews are in addition to any reviews that outside organizations may provide as part of their own publication processes. i AbstractThis report describes the foundation and rationale for a framework designed to measure reading literacy. The aim of the effort is to build an assessment system that reflects current theoretical conceptions of reading and is developmentally sensitive across a prekindergarten to 12th grade student range. The assessment framework is intended to document the aims of the assessment program, define the target constructs to be assessed, and describe the assessment designs that are aligned with the aims and constructs. This framework report is preliminary in that we are engaged in an iterative process of writing and revising the framework, based on what we learn from efforts to instantiate the ideas in new assessment designs and the results we garner from piloting novel designs. We also anticipate drafting further sections to address issues such as the scoring models and analytic plans once assessments have been designed and piloted.

Contributions of Academic Language, Perspective Taking, and Complex Reasoning to Deep Reading Comprehension

“…For example, Educational Testing Service (ETS) has developed an innovative suite of computer-delivered assessments called the Global Integrated Scenario-based Assessments (GISA). GISA is a theoretically based measure designed to reflect an updated understanding of the construct of reading comprehension while taking advantage of the affordances of technological delivery Sabatini, O'Reilly, & Deane, 2013). In the study reported here, we use the GISA as our outcome measure of deep reading comprehension (see Methods section for a fuller description of the test and its psychometric properties).…”

Reading for Understanding: How Performance Moderators and Scenarios Impact Assessment Design

“…The second installment of the reading framework built upon the first by providing a definition of reading for understanding, the key constructs to be assessed, a position on reading development, and an overview of two types of assessments (Sabatini, O'Reilly, & Deane, 2013).…”

Using Advances in Cognitive Science to Improve Students Study Skills and Reading Comprehension

“…For example, Reed and Santi ( 2015 ) note that common recommendations for addressing the needs of LD students include: explicit vocabulary instruction in content area texts; supplementing student's background knowledge of relevant concepts; providing instruction in making inferences in relating ideas in a text; and improving students' metacognitive strategies by answering questions, paraphrasing, or writing summaries. These are all explicit features included in the next generation of assessments we have been describing Sabatini et al, 2013 ;Sabatini, O'Reilly, Halderman, & Bruce, 2014 ).…”

“…Students are expected to integrate, synthesize (Goldman, 2012 ), and evaluate (Metzger, 2007 ) multiple sources of information (Britt & Rouet, 2012 ) to satisfy their specifi c purposes and goals for reading. Increasingly, students are encouraged to collaborate and communicate with one another (NGA & CCSSO, 2010 ) as they solve problems and make decisions (Sabatini, O'Reilly, & Deane, 2013 ), often in digital environments (Coiro, 2011 ). Collectively, these new standards, expectations and arguments for updating the construct of reading will undoubtedly impact future test scoreseducators could potentially be faced with new skill gaps.…”