If your student is an inexperienced reader or a reader who needs remedial work, you may wish to do a reading evaluation. This section provides a subjective tool to assess reading issues. If you choose to do an evaluation (whether at the start of the lessons, mid-way through, or after completion), you will be asking your student to read a short text.
► Preparation.
Find a reading passage that is approximately 100 (or 150) words in length and appropriate for your student. Choose something that he has not read before. You can select this text from the many pre-packaged grade-level evaluation tools. You may also use one of your student’s textbooks, a magazine of interest to your adult learner, a newspaper, or a book, so long as there are no illustrations supporting the passage. Make two copies of the sample text, one for the student and one for you. You will mark on your copy.
► Direct your student to read the passage out loud. Make no comments, just listen.
While your student is reading the text, you will, on your copy . . .
- Jot down any words your student did not know, added, or mispronounced.
- Cross out (line through) any words your student skipped.
- Write an “H” over a word that your student hesitated to pronounce.
- Write a “C” over a word that he mishandled but then corrected.
Sample Evaluation (notice how the instructor marked her copy of the text)
John and his younger sister, Susan, were standing on a road just after school. John was a tall boy of about fourteen years of age. Susan was a smaller girl who was twelve years old. Susan stood quietly for a while in the cold, late afternoon. When she broke her silence, she said, “Look! See my breath comes out as smoke!” “That’s steam not smoke,” John corrected her. Susan rolled her eyes, then said, “I’m cold, I want to eat.” “Well, we can choose between either the deli,” John said, “or taking the bus home. If we eat out, we will have to walk the whole way home at night. I would rather take the bus from here and ride home.” “Can’t we do both?” Susan asked. John shook his head and said, “No. I don’t have enough cash for both.” Susan thought for a minute before saying, “Let’s take the bus. Mom’s dinners are better anyway.”
[This passage is 157 words long. ]
► Ask comprehension questions.
After your student has read the passage, ask him a question or two from each of the following categories to see if he understood what he read.
- Fact questions ask who, what, and where.
- Sequencing questions ask the student to tell about events in chronological order or to tell about when, after, before, then, next, yesterday, or tomorrow.
- Opinion questions ask why or how.
- Inference questions ask what might be true, even though it is not directly stated within the passage. Ask what might have happened before the story began or after it ended.
Comprehension is the activity of paying attention, understanding, remembering, and being able to communicate what has been read.
If comprehension is the only concern you have about your student, there are two simple activities that usually will help. (1) Tell your student to silently read a sentence or two. Now cover the text and ask some questions. If your student is not providing satisfactory answers, have him reread the passage. Use this repeat reading process as often as needed to break the “not listening to what is being read” habit of the brain. It’s almost as if the brain eventually wakes up after repeated querying and says to itself, “Do I have to read this again?! I guess I’d better pay attention.” (2) To maintain focus, have your student use his finger or a pencil to point at the words as he reads across a line.
► Evaluate Pace.
Pay attention to the pace at which your student reads.
- Does he read too slowly?
- Does he read too fast?
- Does he read without pausing for commas or stopping at periods?
If your student reads too rapidly or fails to pause at commas or stop at periods, do him a favor and demonstrate correct reading tempo and punctuation manners. Also, have your student reread sentences until he succeeds in slowing himself down. Encourage him to give appropriate inflection at questions and exclamation marks. One instructor we know encourages her students to pretend that reading is “a slow song.” She taps her finger to set the tempo while her students are reading. One of her students once commented, “My brain likes to read to a slow song!”
A plodding or erratic pace may indicate that your student lacks a basic understanding of the words. He will benefit from the strong emphasis placed on comprehension in this book.