Information Competence & English Reading Comprehension Tests in Schools

1. Information Competence & English Reading Comprehension Tests in Schools Liu Zhao-hui lzhjyxy@126.com Xi-an, Shan-xi, Dec. 14, 2007

2. The Scope of This Discussion 1. What Have Been Emphasized in NNCS The Five Goals of NNCS 1) Knowledge, 2) Skills, 3) Strategies, 4) Emotion & Attitude, 5) Cultural Awareness. The Five General Aspects of Contents Related to Reading Comprehension Tests

3. 2. Kinds of Information Competence in Schools • Before Classes Competence in Collecting Information Related During Classes • Competence in Comprehensively Analyzing & Processing Information Supplied or Given • Competence in Integrating Knowledge of Subjects Related • Competence in Establishing New Information through Guided Questions • Competence in judging the Correctness of Information Related After Classes • Competence in Manipulating Information to Solve Problems in Practice

4. 3. Situation Related to Reading at Present 1) What PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) 2006 did: Contents tested= Narrative Structure+ Expository Structure Types of Items in the Tests = Directed + In-directed---simple + practice Length of the Passages: 1000---1600 Words--- larger contents + speed emphasis 2) Diversity in NMET More Than19 Sets All over the Country Problems in Reading Comprehension Parts: 阅读理解背景材料处理不当，语言不地道，所设问题模棱两可或是选项具有争议---Marcus Charles Johns

5. Theories about Comprehending Text 1. The traditional viewReaders are passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text and the reader has to reproduce meaning. • According to Nunan (1991), reading in this view is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents in the quest for making sense of the text. He referred to this process as the 'bottom-up' view of reading. • McCarthy (1999) has called this view 'outside-in' processing, referring to the idea that meaning exists in the printed page and is interpreted by the reader then taken in. • This model of reading has almost always been under attack as being insufficient and defective for the main reason that it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and structure.

6. 2. The cognitive view • Goodman (1967; cited in Paran, 1996) presented reading as a psycholinguistic guessing game, a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth. Here, the reader rather than the text is at the heart of the reading process. • The schema theory of reading also fits within the cognitively based view of reading. Rumelhart (1977) has described schemata as "building blocks of cognition" which are used in the process of interpreting sensory data, in retrieving information from memory, in organizing goals and sub-goals, in allocating resources, and in guiding the flow of the processing system. • Rumelhart (1977) has also stated that if our schemata are incomplete and do not provide an understanding of the incoming data from the text we will have problems processing and understanding the text.

7. 3. The meta-cognitive viewMeta-cognition involves thinking about what one is doing while reading. Klein et al. (1991) stated that strategic readers attempt the following while reading: • Identifying the purpose of the reading before reading • Identifying the form or type of the text before reading • Thinking about the general character and features of the form or type of the text. For instance, they try to locate a topic sentence and follow supporting details toward a conclusion • Projecting the author's purpose for writing the text (while reading it), • Choosing, scanning, or reading in detail • Making continuous predictions about what will occur next, based on information obtained earlier, prior knowledge, and conclusions obtained within the previous stages.

8. Summary from the Points Above • Carrying out the previous steps requires the student to be able to classify, sequence, establish whole-part relationships, compare and contrast, determine cause-effect, summarise, hypothesise and predict, infer, and conclude.

9. What Would be Generally Covered in Comprehension Tests • Comprehension— Knowledge Possessed 1) Inference 2) Main Idea & Details 3) Critical Reading • Vocabulary 1) Synonyms 2) Context Clues 3) Words with Special Meanings • Study Skills 1) Visual Materials 2) Reference Skills

10. General Comprehension Difficulties • Students may not have the necessary package of knowledge ( schema) to understand a specific topic. • Students may have well-developed schemas for a topic, but the authors may not give enough information for them to locate a given schema. • Students may select a schema for interpreting a text, only to discover later that the text information does not fit the slot in the selected schema. • The cultural experiences students possess may affect their stance or perspective. This may leads to an “understanding” of the text but a misunderstanding of the author.

11. Example Tony slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape. He hesitated a moment and thought. Things were not going well. What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong but he thought he could break it. He knew, however, that his timing would have to be perfect. Tony was aware that it was because of his early roughness that he had been penalized so severely. The situation was becoming frustrating; the pressure had been grinding on him for too long…

12. What We Should Do to Help Our Students in Comprehending a Text • The Helpful Role of Redundancy • The Interaction of VI and NVI in Reading Comprehension Tests • Enlightnment from PIRLS • Proper Training The End. Thanks