ASSESSING READING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES

OF GRADE SIX PUPILS AT MATAAS NA LUPA-PALSAHINGIN

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SY 2024-2025

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Abstract
Generally, experts agree on what good readers do to comprehend text—they connect new text
with past experiences, interpret, evaluate, synthesize, and consider alternative interpretations.
Yet, traditional measures of reading comprehension only provide a general indicator of how
well a student understands text. They do not provide information about how the student uses
cognitive and metacognitive processes or explain why a student may be struggling. This
article discusses various traditional and innovative reading comprehension assessment
measures, including standardized norm-referenced tests, informal reading inventories,
interviews and questionnaires, anecdotal records and observations, oral retelling, freewriting,
and think-aloud procedures. For each technique relative strengths and weaknesses are
described.

Abstract

Background. Accurate assessment of reading difficulties is clearly important if appropriate

support and remediation is to be provided. Many different reading tests are routinely used yet
it is not clear to what extent different tests tap the same underlying skills.

Aims. The nature of the relationships between different tests of reading accuracy, reading
comprehension and linguistic comprehension is investigated in this paper.

Samples, Methods and Results. In study 1,184 7–10 year old children completed a listening
comprehension test, three tests of reading accuracy (reading of nonwords, single words and
text) and two tests of reading comprehension (text comprehension and sentence completion).
While sentence completion was well accounted for by individual differences in word
recognition, text comprehension was more heavily dependent on listening comprehension.
Study 2 compared the performance of children with poor comprehension skills with controls
matched for age, nonverbal ability and decoding skill. The poor comprehenders had greatest
difficulty with those tests most heavily dependent on linguistic comprehension and least
difficulty on purer measures of decoding.

Conclusions. These findings show that different reading tests measure different aspects of
the reading process and that caution should be exercised when selecting tests for the
assessment of reading difficulties.
Abstract

Background. The Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA; Neale, 1997) is a widely used
assessment of reading comprehension and word reading accuracy. Spooner, Baddeley, and
Gathercole (2004) questioned the suitability of the NARA for identifying children with
specific reading comprehension deficits.

Aims and methods. An evaluation of the NARA measurement of word reading and reading
comprehension level was undertaken in relation to models of reading ability. Appropriate
control measures were considered. The strengths and weaknesses of different forms of
reading comprehension were also evaluated.

Results. Previous research into reading comprehension difficulties using the NARA has
adopted satisfactory control measures in relation to word reading ability. There are
limitations associated with all the considered forms of reading comprehension assessment.

Conclusions. If administered and interpreted appropriately, the NARA is an effective

instrument for researchers and practitioners who need to assess both word reading accuracy
and reading comprehension and to identify children with a dissociation between these two
aspects of reading.

Abstract

There are many environmental and personal factors that contribute to reading success.
Reading comprehension is a complex interaction of language, sensory perception, memory,
and motivational aspects. However, most existing assessment tools have not adequately
reflected the complex nature of reading comprehension. Good assessment requires a
multifaceted approach to reading diagnosis and flexible interventions in order to cater for
individual learning needs. In recent times, the Four Roles Model has enabled educators to
broaden the focus of literacy programs in many Australian schools. Such a focus can provide
a framework to better understand the complex nature of reading comprehension and its
various situational applications. This discussion investigates the educational issues for the
assessment of students with reading comprehension difficulties and suggests appropriate
principles and strategies that teachers can apply to inform assessment and teaching practice.

Summary/Abstract: This study attempts to shed light on the concept of assessment as an essential
pedagogical practice for the improvement of the teaching-learning process. Particularly, it stresses
the strategies and the techniques that should be used in assessing reading comprehension with
reference to EFL classrooms. It describes the kinds of tasks that actually reveal students’ reading
comprehension abilities and needs. Moreover, this paper aims to illustrate the types and the
advantages of assessment for both teachers and learners. More importantly, this study tries to bring
equitable evidence of how reading comprehension can be adequately assessed. The findings showed
that assessment of reading comprehension is central to English language teaching as it provides
teachers with essential information about students’ weaknesses, needs, obstacles, and deficits.
Thus, teachers can implement the appropriate techniques and use the assessment results to amend
their classroom instruction and enhance the learning abilities.
INTRODUCTION

Reading is an essential skill critical to most, if not all, academic learning and success at tertiary level.

Reading comprehension then, is a thinking process by which a reader selects facts, information or
ideas

from printed materials; determines the meanings the author intended to transmit; decides how they
relate

to previous knowledge and judges their appropriateness and worth for meeting the learner’s own
needs

and objectives.

To encourage meaningful understanding, apart from the above, a learner needs to understand and

remember texts by inferring, elaborating ideas, and discarding unimportant details (Garner, 1988).
Such

tasks engage cognitive processes that require learners to follow and respond to a message from a
writer

who is distant in space and time (Davis, 1995). Logically, active and thoughtful reading procedures

should lead learners to critically analyze and think of the text, resulting in the reconstruction of

knowledge. Many researchers advocate this concept of reading as a source for critical thinking

engagement with texts because of its potential to facilitate, re-enact and reconstruct knowledge that

produces meaning and understanding i.e. comprehension (Fielding & Pearson, 1994).

Comprehension includes all the skills and abilities necessary for literal, inferential and critical
reading.

Thus, reading comprehension questions are used extensively in testing language proficiency courses
in

Univesiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). This study intends to analyze UiTM undergraduates’ ability in

answering reading comprehension questions at different levels of thinking and the test scores
obtained

by them.

The purpose of this study is to find answers to the following research questions;

1. How did the students perform in a reading comprehension paper?

2. How did the students score in answering different levels of thinking processes (Bloom’s
Taxonomy)

in this reading comprehension paper?

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction
Instructional assessment plays an essential role in the progress of the instructional process. It is an

essential part of the teaching-learning process. Students’ learning can be measured by different

procedures. One of these procedures, which are widely used by teachers in the classroom, is the

achievement test. Good achievement tests are supposed to measure different levels of learning.
Bloom

(1956), suggested six different cognitive stages in learning from the simple recall or recognition of
facts,

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as the lowest level, to the highest order, which is evaluation.

2.2 Objectives Of Reading Tests

Many reading tests still operate on the principle that meaning is text –immanent, and that the
leaner’s job

is to find the same meanings that the test designer found. The problem with testing comprehension
is that

they test only whether students are able to think what we want or expect them to think. Yet, they
do not

lead to an accurate assessment of what students really are thinking as they read. In fact, ‘forced
choice’

item type such as multiple choice usually produce the most problems among the best readers, who

invariably find some logical flaw or are confused by the only partial adequacy of the possible
answers

provided (Horowitz, 1991).

Despite what experts have said about the nature of reading, many teachers measure comprehension
by

how well students recall the details of what they have read (Allington, 2001). Thus, most students
are

judged as proficient readers because they can answer questions related to the factual information in
the

text. However, when the assessment focuses on critical reading and responding to text, only a few

students demonstrate even minimal proficiency..

2.3 Multiple choice testing

Ultimately, there is no one ideal assessment process. Multiple choice question (MCQ) testing has its
advantages and disadvantages. Chan and Kennedy (2002) suggest MCQs responses are easily scored

with accuracy and objectivity. Importantly, the tests do not openly disadvantage students with weak

reading skills to the same degree as essay questions. Misreading one MCQ may lose the student a
small

percentage; however, misreading an essay question can result in substantial losses, Overall, MCQs
can

provide increased breadth and depth of coverage of material as opposed to essays that may
concentrate

on a focused area.

Multiple choice tests appear to be controversial and the major problems stem from poorly or in

appropriately constructed test items (Paxton, 2000). It is recognized that creativity cannot be tested
and

this disadvantage reflects Bloom’s taxonomy of combining ideas to form a new whole (Bloom,

Engelhart, Furst, Hill & Krathwohl,1956). However, the other five components of Blooms taxonomy:

knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis and evaluation can be tested through MCQs.

MCQs are able to provide information about student’s higher levels of understanding rather than the

notion that MCQ tests higher order learning ideals (Higgins & Tatham, 2003). If measures are
correctly

designed, the tests are able to assess the depth and breadth of students’ knowledge (Epstein,
Lazarus,

Calvano & Matthews, 2002). However, some students will engage in rote learning irrespective of the

assessment method.

2.4 MCQ testing

Possession of an adequate knowledge base was once considered as unimportant, as knowledge is

changing so rapidly. The ability to find out and solve problem was stressed as being more important.

According to Norman (1996), problem-solving and competence are not generic and are dependent
on

individual cases, tasks, situations, problems and, crucially, is knowledge-dependent .

A longstanding criticism of the validity of MCQs is that testing cognitive knowledge does not

guarantee competence as professional competence integrates knowledge, skills, attitudes and

communication skills. However, decades of research have shown that knowledge of a domain is the

single best determinant of expertise (Glaser, 1984). MCQs are, therefore, a legitimate method of

competence testing, as cognitive knowledge is best assessed using written test forms (Downing,
2002).
While MCQs are expressly designed to assess knowledge, well-constructed MCQs can also access

taxonomically higher-order cognitive processing such as interpretation, synthesis and application of

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knowledge rather than testing recall of isolated facts (Case & Swanson, 2001). However, ‘higher-
order’

MCQs still require cognitive knowledge and may not be any more valid but their practicality makes
them

more acceptable to examinees and examiners .However, a fair MCQ-based test is much more than a

statistically reliable test of cognitive knowledge.

3. METHODOLOGY

The Research Design used for this study is the Content Analysis Research and correlation study of
the

results between the scores of each item against the level of thought processes of the Bloom
Taxonomy.

This is a quantitative study; this type of study was chosen because the quantitative data appears to
be

easier to interpret because it is more specific and explicit rather than implicit in nature (Sulaiman,
2004).

3.1 The Subjects

A total of fifty Part 3 diploma students were chosen for this research. Convenience sampling was
used in

this study because the participants were willing and available to be studied. These part 3 students
also

have similar academic background. Their English language proficiency level ranges from low

intermediate to high intermediate. These students have been exposed to answering reading

comprehension passages in Part 1 and Part 2.

3.2 The Design

Correlational Research design was used for this study. This correlational explores the relationship

between the students’ performance and the level of thinking process of the Bloom Taxonomy in

answering a reading comprehension paper. This is a quantitative study; this type of study was
chosen
because the quantitative data appears to be easier to interpret because it is more specific and
explicit

rather than implicit in nature (Sulaiman, 2004). Test scores would be collected and analyzed. This
paper

attempts to measure the students’ reading comprehension scores against the level of thinking
processes

of the RCQs on questions formation advocated by the Bloom Taxonomy.

3.3 The Instrument

A set of reading comprehension question was used. Thirty-five multiple choice items were tested in
this

paper. 7 questions on information transfer and 28 questions designed from 4 different reading
passages.

The test scores were collected and analyzed. The students’ reading comprehension scores against
the

level of thinking processes of the questions using Bloom Taxonomy was analyzed quantitatively.

4. RESULTS

Table 1 shows the total percentage score of the students with the correct answers for each question
in the

reading comprehension paper used in this study. The students’ performance in this paper varies

according to the levels of thinking process. Students performed better in questions with low level

thinking process (knowledge, comprehension and application) compared to high order questions.

From Table 2, only 66.0 % of students responded the Knowledge level questions correctly. As for the

Comprehension level, 57.2% of students got them right. 47.0 % of the students were able to answer
the

Application level questions correctly. Only 48.4% of students managed to answer the Analysis level

questions correctly. As for the Synthesis questions, 33.6% of the students got them right. There was
only

one question tested on the evaluation level with only 28.0 % of the students were able to answer

accurately.

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Table 1: Itemization of the Percentage of Students with Correct Score For Each Item

Question
Number

Level of Thinking Processes Number of students with

correct answer

Percentage

1 Comprehension 46 92

2 Application 32 64

3 Application 15 30

4 Analysis 17 34

5 Comprehension 34 68

6 Analysis 13 26

7 Synthesis 17 34

8 Knowledge 32 64

9 Comprehension 19 38

10 Comprehension 26 52

11 Evaluation 14 28

12 Comprehension 31 62

13 Synthesis 12 24

14 Comprehension 25 50

15 Comprehension 33 66

16 Comprehension 28 56

17 Comprehension 28 56

18 Comprehension 37 74

19 Comprehension 20 40

20 Synthesis 20 40

21 Analysis 13 26

22 Comprehension 20 40

23 Analysis 14 28

24 Synthesis 17 34

25 Analysis 30 60

26 Comprehension 26 52

27 Comprehension 35 70
28 Analysis 20 40

29 Analysis 17 34

30 Comprehension 21 42

31 Knowledge 34 68

32 Analysis 16 32

33 Analysis 18 36

34 Synthesis 18 36

35 Analysis 10 20

Table 2: Percentage of students with correct answer according to Level of Thinking Processes

Level of Thinking Processes Number of Questions Percentage of students with

correct answer

Knowledge 2 66.0

Comprehension 15 57.2

Application 2 47.0

Analysis 10 48.4

Synthesis 5 33.6

Evaluation 1 28.0

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The findings indicate that the level of thinking processes advocated by Bloom taxonomy has

influenced the performance of the students in the reading comprehension paper. It seems that the

students face difficulties when answering higher level questions especially questions at level 4, 5 and
6

(analysis, synthesis and evaluation). It also influences the students’ ability to answer higher order

questions as compared to lower order questions. The findings conclude that there’s a relationship

between the level of thinking and the students’ ability to answer them correctly.

Researchers have found that teaching reading strategies is important to developing increased
student

comprehension. At the same time, they have found many teachers lack a solid foundation for
teaching

these reading comprehension strategies (National Reading Panel, 2005).Teachers must employ
comprehension strategies to teach reading comprehension. Comprehension monitoring helps
students

what they understand or do not understand while reading a text. It also helps them to use “fix-up”

strategies such as re-reading for a particular purpose or adjusting reading speed as related to text

difficulty. Answering a variety of questions from literal to application types during pre-reading,
reading

and post reading provides students with a purpose and focus for reading. Asking these questions
during

the process improves student’s active engagement with text.

5. DISCUSSION

5.1 Pre-Reading, While Reading and Post Reading

According to Chia (2001), some students report that they have no problem with understanding both

words and sentence structures of the paragraph, but they cannot reach satisfactory interpretation of
the

text. Hence, pre- reading, activities should emphasize methods of merging the students, text and
content.

To assist the reading process, recall related prior knowledge, preview and predict what the text will
be

about. We need to build their background by activating appropriate prior knowledge through
questioning

about the text. Wallace (1992) proposes one very popular kind of pre-reading task is “brain
storming”.

Brainstorming has many advantages. Firstly, it requires little preparation; second, it allows student

considerable freedom to bring their own prior knowledge and opinions to bear on a particular issue;
and

third, it can involve the whole class.

Previewing motivates students to read. Swaffar et. al. (1991) pointed out the benefits of previewing

techniques that allow students to formulate hypotheses about the text. Teachers ask students to
recall and

consider prior personal experiences that are relevant to the text and help to build the necessary

background knowledge about the text.

While-reading activities should enable students to monitor their comprehension through a variety of

strategies and experiences. Teachers should monitor comprehension by teaching students to guess

meaning of new words using the cueing system. Post-reading activities helps students to review
their
understanding of text, relate new ideas to their schemata, revise their thinking, apply the
information to

other texts and remember crucial learning for future application.

5.2 Vocabulary Building

Vocabulary is essential for getting meaning from text. Thus, it is recommended that teacher should

consider using many activities before reading strategies to improve students’ vocabulary. As a
student

begins to read, reading vocabulary stumbled upon in texts is mapped onto the oral vocabulary
he/she

brings to the task. When the word is not in the students’ oral vocabulary, it will not be understood
when it

occurs in print. Vocabulary occupies an important ground in learning to read. Reading vocabulary is

important in the comprehension processes of students.

Christen and Murphy (1991) insist that research clearly emphasizes that for learning to occur, new

information must be incorporated with what the students already knows. They feel that teaching

vocabulary as a pre-reading step is an instructional intervention that should be considered when

students

lack the prior or background knowledge to read in a content area.

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5.3 Breaking up of text

We could also utilize the breaking up the text strategy. A long text may appear daunting to students

whose reading is not very skilled or speedy. When you ask the class to read it silently, the slower
students

will feel even more inadequate, while the quicker ones will finish long before the time you have
allowed.

This is a nuisance and may be a problem if discipline is shaky, since it gives the better students time
to

create disturbances. Kawabata (2007) agrees this method allows the students to analyse more detail
in

each section, obtain specific information more closely, combine information of the sections, and

understand the main idea of the text. Skimming, scanning, and breaking up the text are introduced
as
group activities to develop and confirm the students’ understanding further.

Some people read better than others but teachers can reduce the effects of the differences by
dealing

with the text in several short sections instead of all at once. In this way, the better students may be
kept

waiting only a couple of minutes for each section, instead of a much longer time if the slower ones
have

to finish the whole text.

6. CONCLUSION

Not being able to perform efficiently in English affects a substantial number of students in higher

institutions, especially when most subjects are taught in English using textbooks written in English.

Weak students are also generally not prepared to “perform” in the language because in-depth
thinking

processes are required in the study of the sciences and arts at tertiary level. They find it difficult to

understand the difficult texts in books and this will affect their performance in their core subjects. At
this

level, they need to speak, write and critically analyze in English to be well informed and competent,

failing which they will resort to memorizing and copying without fully understanding the contents.

Higher-order thinking occurs when students look beyond the surface of the text they are reading to
figure

out an answer or to attain comprehension. Making predictions, drawing conclusions and making

inferences are examples of reading strategies that typically elicit higher-order thinking. While there
is a

recognized demand to have higher-order thinking practice in the classroom, there is also a
recognized

instructional struggle with bringing higher-order thinking to life in the classroom.

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Abstract: Assessment is an essential part of the teaching-learning process. Students’

learning can be measured by different procedures. Despite a significant increase in

test procedures, numerous issues surrounding testing of comprehension remain

unresolved. This paper investigates the relationship between the level of thinking

processes in comprehension questions and the students` performance. The findings

indicate that the level of questions designed according to Bloom’s Taxonomy

influence the students’ performance in answering comprehension questions. The

findings conclude that there’s a relationship between the level of thinking processes

needed and the students’ ability to answer these questions correctly. This paper

provides a common base for further discussions on the undergraduates’ competence

in English Language as well as the recommendations on the techniques that could be

used to handle higher order level questions.

Keywords: Level of thinking process; Reading Comprehension Questions;

Performance; Bloom’s Taxonomy; Multiple choice questions (MCQs)