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Assessment of reading and comprehension skills in adulthood: Reading effectiveness, a new parameter

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rip2023oa17123
Submitted
gennaio 9, 2024
Published
2024-01-31

Abstract

The assessment of reading skills (speed, accuracy and comprehension) has always been a topic of great interest in clinical, pedagogical and educational settings (Cornoldi & Carretti, 2016; Montesano, Valenti & Cornoldi, 2020).
Current diagnostic assessment, in accordance with the Consensus Document and the Guidelines issued by the Italian Health Authorities, includes the administration of tests that consider the parameters of speed and accuracy separately from those of comprehension. This modality seems to be very effective in diagnosis, yet not totally appropriate in the educational field, where it is very important to consider these abilities jointly. Competent readers can balance reading speed and comprehension needs, adapting their reading strategies to the nature of the texts and the aims of reading (Santulli & Scagnelli, 2019). Starting from these considerations, the authors propose to consider a parameter used in Anglo-Saxon testing (and already experimented during the Super Reading course): Reading Effectiveness (RE). RE allows the joint assessment of reading speed in silent mode and reading comprehension, and is particularly useful when testing young adults (Cole, 2009; Cooper, 2009a, 2009b). Previous research conducted on this parameter has highlighted its added value in measuring reading proficiency in young adults. Though the Authors recognize the importance of measuring decoding (speed and accuracy) and comprehension abilities separately in a clinical context, they believe that RE can be an interesting measure in the academic context. Specifically, RE has the advantage of allowing an ecological and integrated measurement of silent reading speed and comprehension. However, it has a limitation: in the formula adopted to calculate its value, the time variable has a greater weight than the comprehension variable (Scagnelli, Della Beffa & Santulli, 2019). As a matter of fact, while there is no limit to reading time, the maximum level of comprehension is 100 per cent (Scagnelli, Della Beffa & Santulli, 2019), determining a ceiling effect. Therefore, the Authors aimed to verify how RE changes when modifying the way the tests are administered, namely putting a limit to reading time. The research hypothesis is that there are no differences in RE when the protocol of administration is modified. Should this hypothesis be confirmed, the effectiveness of RE would be further supported, as this parameter would preserve its robustness in assessing reading abilities.
Reading tests were thus administered in two different ways, in order to rebalance the weight of the time variable: the tests were administered in one case without providing a time limit, in the second case with a time limit. The results obtained with a population of 73 college students confirm the usefulness of the reading effectiveness parameter, as an ecological and reliable mode of assessment in the educational context.

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