Incorporating Scenario-Based Design into Reading Literacy Assessment and Instruction(1/2)

Reading comprehension is a complex process, and it involved the interaction of the reader, the text, and the activity. However, without considering this nature of complexity, traditional reading comprehension assessments have been designed mostly to tap students’ abilities to define specific word meaning in context, locate particular piece of information, summarize the main ideas, and make inferences. The outcomes of the assessments were used as screening tools or to see whether the test takers reach the benchmark levels, but did not provide much insight for instructional practices. The main goal of this study is to develop curriculum that can enhance high school students’ reading literacy through integrating a Scenario-Based Assessment of reading literacy into reading instruction. The Scenario-Based Assessment will be designed with the aim to (i) transfer the assessment into process and formative assessment so that teachers can get feedbacks during class session, and (b) include items that go beyond measuring students’ cognitive skills, and the contents of Taiwan’s new curriculum guidelines will also be incorporated in the measures. This 3-year study will accomplish three main objectives: (1) develop a few sets of Scenario-Based Assessment of reading literacy that can serve as classroom teacher’s formative assessment tool; (2) use the designed Scenario-Based Assessment as the research instrument and conduct an instructional intervention to test out its feasibility; and (3) work with high school teachers from different content areas to develop more sets of Scenario-Based Assessment of reading literacy that can be used widely in different high schools.