Page 200 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Assessing Language Skills

called ‘running records’ (Clay, 2000). It involves the systematic observation
and documentation of learners’ reading as they read a text aloud. Running
records are typically used with early readers in L1 but may be adapted for
readers in an FL learning context, bearing in mind that FL learners may
have specific difficulties with pronouncing unfamiliar proper nouns, such
as names for people, places, or organizations, due to their lack of cultural
knowledge. The running record process begins by selecting a text that is
at an appropriate level of difficulty for YLs. The learner then reads the text
aloud while the teacher closely observes and makes notes, recording the
learner’s oral reading ability, including accuracy (Do the learners read the
word correctly?), errors (What mistakes are made?), self-corrections (Do they
correctthemselveswhilereading?),fluency(Howsmoothandfastistheread-
ing?), and comprehension (Do they understand the text?). After the reading
session, the teachers look at the running record to gain insights into the
learner’s reading abilities. This helps them understand the strategies learners
use when reading, monitor progress over time, and make informed instruc-
tional decisions.
To understand a sentence, one must visually process the words, identify
their phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations and finally
link the terms applying syntactical rules to comprehend the underlying
meaning of the sentence (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014). Before teachers design
reading test tasks, they need to thoroughly understand the reading process
and what may influence it. Besides word decoding and general language
comprehension skills, some of the main elements of the reading process that
may predict student’s achievement in reading comprehension are also the
characteristics of the text, reading fluency, and prior or background knowl-
edge. In addition, reading competence may be influenced by the extent to
which a learner is able to monitor the understanding of the text, for exam-
ple by being able to predict, compare, draw conclusions, or make inferences.
Reading comprehension entails the construction of a meaningful mental
representation of the text in the readers’ memory. This construction is built
by the readers’ making inferences, a skill which needs to be developed and
assessed. Van den Broek et al. (2005) point out that just like older children and
adults, also YLs are able to make inferences, they just need more support and
less complex contexts.

Reading Assessment Tasks
According to research in reading comprehension assessment of young EFL
learners, it has been observed that after 2 or 3 years of early FL learning, most

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