The Potency of 'READS' to Inform Students' Reading Ability

http://rel.sagepub.com/RELC Journal

http://rel.sagepub.com/content/43/2/271The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0033688212451803

2012 43: 271RELC JournalAbdul Rashid Mohamed, Lin Siew Eng and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail

The Potency of 'READS' to Inform Students' Reading Ability

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:RELC JournalAdditional services and information for

http://rel.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://rel.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

http://rel.sagepub.com/content/43/2/271.refs.htmlCitations:

What is This?

- Aug 6, 2012Version of Record >>

at UVI - Biblioteca Central on April 24, 2014rel.sagepub.comDownloaded from at UVI - Biblioteca Central on April 24, 2014rel.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://rel.sagepub.com/

http://rel.sagepub.com/content/43/2/271

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://rel.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://rel.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://rel.sagepub.com/content/43/2/271.refs.html

http://rel.sagepub.com/content/43/2/271.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml



RELC Journal43(2) 271 –282

© The Author(s) 2012Reprints and permission: sagepub.

co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0033688212451803

rel.sagepub.com

The Potency of ‘READS’ to Inform Students’ Reading Ability

Abdul Rashid Mohamed Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Lin Siew Eng Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Abstract This paper shares an initiative conducted in Malaysia in terms of knowledge to gauge students’ Reading Age and to inform teachers of their students’ reading progress and learning. Ensuring teachers understand the needs of students’ reading ability and preparing students to read and comprehend texts are the two most fundamental parallel tasks in today’s classroom setting. Consequently, determining students’ Reading Age has become an important endeavour in recent years by many education authorities throughout the world. This study aims at incorporating the Reading Evaluation and Decoding System (READS), to ascertain students’ Reading Age and comprehension skills at macro and micro levels. This study employed a stratified sample of high school students who were in Secondary 1 through Secondary 5. Data was gathered through a generic standardized reading comprehension developed test. With a precise Reading Matrix, ESL teachers can appraise their students’ reading ability at any level by referring to the Performance Standards to distinguish whether their students are at Meet Reading Age, Below Reading Age or Above Reading Age status . Subsequently, teachers can refer to the Descriptors of Students’ Reading Abilities to find out what the students have achieved so far and what the struggling readers lacked. Accordingly, ESL teachers will be well informed of their students reading ability and accordingly can focus on reading skills development of their students. The ripple effects of READS may enhance students’ reading ability as teachers are now better informed of their students’ reading abilities and thus teachers will be able to prepare reading lessons appropriately according to their students’ reading needs.

Corresponding author: Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail, School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, 11800, Malaysia. Email: [email protected]

451803 REL 43 2 10.1177/0033688212451803 Mohamed et al. RELC Journal 2012

Article

at UVI - Biblioteca Central on April 24, 2014rel.sagepub.comDownloaded from


272 RELC Journal 43(2)

KeywordsReading Matrix, Performance Standards, Descriptors of Students’ Reading Abilities

Introduction

This paper intends to provide a fresh avenue in the understanding of secondary school students’ reading ability. This initiative includes the understanding of students’ reading performance, understanding the country’s reading standards, and students’ Reading Age, so that teachers, policy makers, schools and parents are aware of the potency of the Reading Evaluation and Decoding System (READS) which was developed from an ear-lier study (Abdul Rashidet al., 2010) for Malaysian English as a Second Language (ESL). The earlier study provides information regarding READS the potency of reading encoder, analyser and decoder system which eventually lead to the benchmarking of the Malaysian secondary school students Reading Age profile.

The focus of this paper is to benchmark the Reading Age of the secondary school students. Primarily, the study assesses the students’ reading standards i.e. to observe whether the students ‘Meet Reading Age’, are ‘Above Reading Age’ or ‘Below Reading Age’ at their educational levels. Reading Age refers to a person’s ability to read, meas-ured by comparing it with the average ability of children of a particular age (Turnbull, in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2011). For example, a 14-year-old student with a Reading Age of 17. Additionally, by incorporating READS into the teachers’ assess-ment culture, teachers will now have a handle on their students’ true reading abilities.

Currently in Malaysia, the culture of test taking has become part of the school agenda. A string of federal mandated tests, state initiated tests, districts additional tests and school generated tests. What we are trying to do is to establish the reading standards based on a fully loaded data driven instrument and to introduce for the first time ever, a national standard reading ability matrix. In order to establish the reading standards, we intend to introduce READS in the Malaysian schools.

We developed READS and attempted to establish the Malaysian secondary school students’ Reading Age. The entire study provides ESL teachers, educators and policy makers with an important data regarding the Malaysian secondary students’ ESL reading abilities. Our study found that more than half of the students who participated in the study are at below grade level in terms of reading ability.

Aim

The main purpose of this study is to benchmark the ESL Reading Age of secondary school students’ (Secondary 1 to Secondary 5). The standardized written reading com-prehension test assesses the reading comprehension ability of the students. This study does not test the oral reading abilities of the students. What we intend to look for is: What is the respondents’ Reading Age from Secondary 1 to Secondary 5?

Reading in Malaysia

In a developing country such as Malaysia, the assessment of reading is not conducted as rigorously as in the West or in the United States. Malaysia is still finetuning its reading



Mohamed et al. 273

corollaries. In the United States for instance; intervals of reading tests are conducted nationally. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a periodic assessment of student progress conducted in the United States by the National Center for Education Statistics. The NAEP assessment covers the areas of mathematics, reading, writing, science, and much more is conducted on representative samples of students at grades 4, 8, and 12 for the main assessments, and on samples of students at ages 9, 13, or 17 years for long-term trend assessments. The data obtained will be made public in a comprehensive manner (NAEP, 2010). Based on the reading scores, the policy makers, curriculum planners and more importantly, the practicing teachers will have a colossal amount of information to assist stakeholders in handling reading related matters. Contrary to our experience in Malaysia, there are test scores but the test scores may not reflect the kind of information needed by teachers and other stakeholders with regards to reading issues and challenges. Our intent is to supplement what was partially available in Malaysia by topping up and building up knowledge regarding reading abilities of the students.

What exactly is new? This study means a whole lot to us as researchers and we hope the ripple effects of using READS will benefit the stakeholders in the business of nurtur-ing reading. Globally, this study will provide an insight into the development of a local-ized instrument to assess reading abilities for Malaysian learners and eventually we hope this instrument could be used for the ASEAN region. Consequently, the researchers also hope to address the other components of READS, such as the Reading Matrix, the Descriptors of Reading Abilities and Performance Standards documents that will pre-cisely map the true reading abilities of the learners and consequently will benefit the rest of the world so that the West can have a glimpse of what is going on in relation to reading in Malaysia and this part of the world.

In the non-native English speaking countries, there is infinite talk about upgrading the standard of the English language and the importance of literacy to ensure that no one is left behind. This development is also taking place in Malaysia even though English is a mandatory subject in all primary and secondary schools curriculum and officially accepted as a second language (Ministry of Education of Malaysia, 2000). Secondary education in Malaysia is from age 13 to 17 (Secondary 1 to Secondary 5). The time allo-cated for the teaching of English in the secondary schools is 200 minutes per week with the 4 main language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing forming the core of the curriculum.

In the case of Malaysia, many secondary school students after six years of elementary education and five years of secondary education still lack sufficient reading proficiency (Asha, 1999). She finds that the ability to read in the English language of many Malaysian students is not within desirable or acceptable levels. According to Holloway (1999), reading skills are essential to the academic achievement of lower and upper secondary school students, but many students still lack sufficient proficiency as readers, and many adolescents continue to perform at deplorable levels. Consequently, the role of ESL teachers is getting more complicated and the way they should help these learners improve must change. Our concern, therefore, will be focused on helping educators to understand the learners reading abilities and needs.

In the conventional reading lesson, primarily, the teacher selects a passage for the students to read, and subsequently teachers question students in order to gauge if they




have understood the text. How does this lead to increased reading comprehension skills? In terms of teaching reading comprehension skills, most teachers do very little. Teachers do not deal directly with skills development nor do they help students to develop effec-tive reading strategies (Croft, 1980).

In actuality, teachers must consider and take a paradigm shift to ensure that their stu-dents become powerful readers. Education authorities need to re-engineer the evaluation system in order to identify where the students are and where they should be (at what grade level) in terms of reading abilities. Currently, there are still some gaps in the assess-ment of the English Language Reading test scores. The results are expressed symboli-cally, generally as grades, with little direction and advice for improvement. As stated by Arshad (2005:112), ‘‘the mere reporting of a letter grade: A, A-, B+ B, B-, C+, C, or C- only provides generalized information and students will not be able to “learn” from this single letter grade’. The biggest problem with grades is that, they do not offer any infor-mation on how to improve. It would be more practical if a detailed score report is pro-vided for each examination that a student takes. Oosterhof (2001) states that one of the main limitations of percentage grades is that they provide only an overall indication of student achievement as against another. They do not indicate the combination of skills that the students have achieved. Students need clear guidance on where they are, what they have to do next, and how to improve.

In such a case, the most sensible course of action to take would be to make use of the process of benchmarking students’ ESL reading abilities and standards since there are a number of factors that are known to influence them. Due to the vital role and the tremen-dous influence of the students’ reading proficiency in answering the reading comprehen-sion questions, it is important to benchmark the students’ reading proficiency as highlighted by Baguley,

using benchmarks as performance targets or goals can be a powerful

and important step on your road to successful performance management

(Baguley, 2001: 69).

Through benchmarking, teachers will know the areas in which the students are weak and consequently take immediate measures to develop a particular area incrementally in accordance with Krashen’s ‘i + 1 Hypothesis’, (Blair, 1982), i.e. providing the input at a level which is appropriate to what the students already possess and then monitoring for continuous improvement.

It has been stated by Allerson and Grabe (cited in Dubin et al., 1986:161), that stu-dents who have difficulties in reading, need to be carefully assessed in order to identify the difficulties. According to Stanovich (1986), children who encounter difficulty early in the learning process, fall further behind their peers as time passes. Hence, testing to predict concurrent and later reading achievement can identify students who will need extra help in learning to read.

Similar research has been conducted in the United States primarily concerning the need to get reading right for all students, for example, through a programme called ‘Reading Success Where No Child Slips By’ (Hooper, 2002). This program has the



Mohamed et al. 275

objective of getting reading right among students. The vision was, ‘Every child in the Fourth Bend will read at grade level or above by the end of grade 3’. Based on the pro-gramme, the performance standards for reading were identified and they subsequently provided an ideal assessment instrument throughout the year. These performance stand-ards will provide data that is immediately useful in understanding the learning of indi-vidual students and also in monitoring trends at the classrooms, schools and district level.

According to Caldwell (2002), assessment is a four-step process namely:

1. Identify what to assess.2. Collect evidence.3. Analyse the evidence.4. Make a decision based on the analysis.

Caldwell further states that a teacher determines the reading level in order to choose appropriate reading material for a student as Block (2000) believes that instructions that are ineffective may cause many students to fall behind in their ability to comprehend what is being asked of them.

To overcome this problem, READS (developed by Lin, 2009) was adopted to iden-tify the respondents’ ESL reading abilities so that ESL teachers can plan reading les-sons tailored to the needs of the students. READS offers an assessment kit that is able to evaluate students’ reading abilities, analyse the results and decode their reading abilities to provide complete information about the students’ reading abilities. Consequently, the school that we examined can plan an English language reading pro-gramme to assist the ESL teachers identify their students’ reading ability in order to meet the needs of the students.

Methodology

This is a case study conducted in a semi-urban secondary school in Perak, Malaysia. In total, 1,339 secondary school students from Secondary 1 through Secondary 5 partici-pated in the English Language Reading Programme organized by the English Language panel. The students’ ethnic backgrounds were 83.5% Malay, 2.4% Chinese, 13.8% Indian and 0.3% other races. The participants were from mixed ability, which were a mix of good, average and weak students.

Instrument

Specifically, READS was used to identify the reading ability of the students. READS contains three components: the Encoder (Test Instrument), the Analyser (Reading Matrix) and, the Decoder (Descriptors of Reading Abilities).

The main instrument of data gathering was the Standardized Reading Comprehension Test (SRCT). The Test Instrument or Encoder is a generic test which can be used to measure the ESL reading performance of secondary school students from Secondary 1 through Secondary 5 (13-17 year olds). Our test instrument is in line with the typical




standardized Malaysian public examination (UPSR level or Elementary School Assessment level, PMR level and SPM level). The test items of the standardized reading comprehension test are 60 multiple choice questions which comprise of literal, reorgani-zation and inferential comprehension questions set at different levels of difficulty i.e. UPSR, PMR and SPM levels. The test was validated by content experts which comprise of experienced examiners and senior university lecturers to determine the content valid-ity. The test reliability was verified using the Kuder-Richardson (KR20). The KR20 of this test was 0.85 which is consistent with Diederich cited in Oosterhof (2001:74) where the reliability should be between 0.60 and 0.80 if a teacher’s test requires approximately 50 minutes to complete.

The 60 multiple choice questions comprise of 15 UPSR level constituting 25% of the test questions, 30 PMR level constituting 50% of the test questions, and 15 SPM level constituting 25% of the test questions, as stipulated by Mok (2000). Subsequently, according to Mok (2000), the distribution of the difficulty of test should be 25% easy, 50% average and 25% difficult. In the test, the students respond to different text types such as descriptive texts, dialogue and newspaper reports, mainly expository texts, descriptive texts and narrative texts. Literary texts are not tested in this written reading comprehension test. The time allocated for the standardized reading comprehension test is 70 minutes. The test has been piloted and results show that 70 minutes is the ideal time allocated for participants from Secondary 1 to Secondary 5.

Procedure

The SCRT was administered to all the students in the school to identify respondents’ ESL reading abilities. Students were given 70 minutes to answer the questions. At the begin-ning of the school year, the students sat for the first set of SRCT to identify their reading abilities. The respondents’ reading scores were matched against the Reading Matrix or Analyser and then correlated to the Performance Standards (to find out if the students ‘Meet Reading Age’, are ‘Above Reading Age’ or ‘Below Reading Age’) and subse-quently match with the Descriptors of Reading Abilities (to identify what the students from Band 1 to Band 6 can or cannot do).

The Reading Matrix or Analyser refers to a user-friendly chart which acts as a reading indicator to indicate the reading abilities of the learners at a particular educational level i.e. from Secondary 1 through Secondary 5 where the teachers can match their learners’ test scores with the Performance Bands indicated in the chart as plotted against the edu-cational levels (Table 2). The data from the test scores of students from Secondary 1 through Secondary 5 in a pilot test was gathered to establish the Performance Bands (Band 1 to Band 6). The cut scores for Band 1 to Band 6 tabulated in Table 1 were devel-oped based on z-score.

Table 1. Range of Scores of the Performance Bands

Bands Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6

Scores 0-6 7-18 19-29 30-41 42-53 54-60



Mohamed et al. 277

The idea of Progression through the levels advocated by the Task Group on Assessment and Testing (TGAT) Report (1988) cited in Horton (1990) and Masters (2006) in which the criteria of levels of proficiency and age were taken into consid-eration in gauging the learners’ progress was adopted to develop the Reading Matrix.

As for the Performance Standards, the four levels of reading performance were adapted from the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE), (Illinois State Board of Education, 2004). Other reading standards include the Victorian Curriculum & Standards Framework II (Board of Studies, Victoria, 2000), the Curriculum stand-ards for the State of Qatar (Education Institute Doha, 2005) and the American National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2005). The Performance Standards could be used as a reference to find out what the students at each level know or do not know. They were specifically developed to fit the Malaysian second-ary school students.

The Descriptors of Reading Abilities or Decoder act as indicators to inform the teachers of which sub-skills of reading the learners are able to do or unable to do. These descriptors were developed based on the respondents’ reading performance on the test conducted. North’s ‘Reading Scale for the Council of Europe Framework’ cited in Alderson (2000: 132-34) was adopted as the model to develop the Descriptors of Reading Abilities. Other reading scales and reading profiles were the Literacy Profile Scales cited in Alderson (2000). The ESL teachers can refer to the Descriptors of Reading Abilities to gain accurate information of their learners’ reading abilities and consequently plan their teaching instruction and reading materials to meet the needs of the learners.

Data Analysis

To benchmark the Reading Age of the secondary school students, frequency counts and percentages were used. The results obtained from the standardized reading com-prehension test were entered into the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.

Table 2. Analysis of Secondary 1 to Secondary 5 Students’ Reading Age

Band 1 Band 2 Band 3 Band 4 Band 5 Band 6

RA 12 RA 13 RA 14 RA 15 RA 16 RA 17

Sec 5 SA 17 22.2% 18.1% 12.7% 24.3% 13.3% *9.4%Sec 4 SA 16 43.3% 22.3% 6.4% 15.5% *6.9% 5.6%Sec 3 SA 15 39.3% 21.5% 10.9% *15.9% 7.2% 5.7%Sec 2 SA 14 47.0% 23.0% *12.7% 15.6% 0.2% 1.5%Sec 1 SA 13 51.7% *23.3% 12.1% 11.1% 0.9% 0.9%

READING MATRIX

Sec = Secondary, *Meets Reading Age at grade level, RA=Reading Age, SA=Schooling Age




Results

The findings are presented in two sections. First, the Reading Age of the students from Secondary 1 through Secondary 5 are presented, which is then followed by the descrip-tion of the different groups of performers.

Table 2 presents the reading performance of the students from Secondary 1 through Secondary 5. The percentages listed in Table 2 disclosed the percentages of students at the various Performance Bands.

Secondary 1 Reading Performance

Based on the Reading Matrix, the students in Secondary 1 (13 year-olds) ideally should be at Band 2. Students who are at Band 2 were classified as ‘Meet Reading Age’ at Secondary 1 level. Table 2 indicates that 23.3% of the Secondary 1 students ‘Meet Reading Age’ while 12.1% are at one level above their Reading Age, 11.1% are at 2 lev-els above their Reading Age and 0.9% of them are at 3 levels above their Reading. It appears that 0.9% of them are even reading at 4 levels above their Reading Age. What is troubling about this data is that 51.7% of the students are considered as ‘Below Reading Age.’ Apparently, the ‘Below Reading Age’ students were having difficulty answering the lowest level questions i.e. the Elementary School Assessment (UPSR) reading com-prehension questions.


Based on the Reading Matrix, the students in Secondary 2 (14 year olds) ideally should be at Band 3. Students who are at Band 3 are classified as’ Meet Reading Age’ at Secondary 2 level. This implies that the Secondary 2 students should have a Reading Age of 14 or higher. However, only 12.7% of the Secondary 2 students are categorized as ‘Meet Reading Age’ and 15. 0.2% of them are reading at 2 levels above their Reading Age. It is worthy to note that 1.5% of the students are appar-ently reading at 3 levels above their Reading Age. However, 23.0% were reading at one level below and 47.0% were reading at 2 levels below their Reading Age respectively.


Looking at the students in Secondary 3 (15 year olds), students should ideally be at Band 4 level. Students who are at Band 4 are categorized as ‘Meet Reading Age’ at Secondary 3 level. This indicates that Secondary 3 students should have a Reading Age of 15 or more. From Table 2, it was noted that only 15.9% are classified as ‘Meet Reading Age’, 7.2% were reading at one level above their Reading Age, and 5.7% are reading at 2 levels above their Reading Age. However, 10.9% are reading at one level below their Reading Age, 14. 21.5% are reading at 2 levels below their Reading Age, and 13. 39.3% are read-ing at 3 levels below their Reading Age respectively.



Mohamed et al. 279


Students in Secondary 4 (16 year olds) should be at Band 5 level. Students who are at Band 5 are classified as ‘Meet Reading Age’ at Secondary 4 level. This indicates that Secondary 4 students should have a Reading Age of 16 or higher. From the data in Table 2, only 6.9% are at Band 5 and categorized as ‘Meet Reading Age’ and 5.6% are reading at one level above their Reading Age. It appears that a majority of them are reading below their Reading Age. For example, 15.5% are reading at one level below their Reading Age, 15. What’s more 6.4% are at Band 3 level, meaning that they were reading at 2 levels below their Reading Age, 14. The results also show 22.3% are at Band 2, meaning that they are reading at 3 levels below their Reading Age, 13. In addition, 43.3% are at Band 1, meaning that they are reading at 4 levels below their Reading Age.


Accordingly, students in Secondary 5 (17 year olds) should be at Band 6 level. Students who are at Band 6 are classified as ‘Meet Reading Age’ at Secondary 5 level. However, only 9.4% are categorized as ‘Meet Reading Age’. Apparently, 13.3% are reading at one level below their Reading Age, 16. The data show 24.3% are reading at 2 levels below their Reading Age, 15; 12.7% are reading at 3 levels below their Reading Age, 14; and 18.1% are reading at 4 levels below their Reading age. It is disturbing to note that 22.2% are as a matter of fact reading at 5 levels below their Reading Age.

To recapitulate, it was evident from Table 2 that a majority of the students in this school are reading below their Reading Age. The findings indicated that most of the students did not meet the reading standard at their assigned education levels (Secondary 1 to Secondary 5).

Profile of ‘Above Reading Age’ Performers

Those who are ‘Above Reading Age’ are readers whose performance surpass the objec-tive of the syllabus set for their respective educational level, which translated to them having acquired the skills and sub-skills of reading for that particular level. Students who are categorized as ‘Above Reading Age’ are the students whose performance in the standardized reading comprehension test surpasses the standard set for students in the Malaysian English Language Syllabus (skimming and scanning for specific information, extracting main ideas and details, discerning sequence of ideas, getting the explicit and implicit meaning of the text, predicting outcomes, making inferences and drawing con-clusions) for that particular grade level.

Profile of ‘Meet Reading Age’ Performers

Students who ‘Meet Reading Age’ are readers whose performance achieve the objective of the syllabus set for the particular educational level, which means these students have acquired the skills and sub-skills of reading for the said level. Those who ‘Meet Reading




Age’ would be students whose performance in the reading test meets the standard set for students in the Malaysian English Language Syllabus.

Profile of ‘Below Reading Age’ Performers

Students performing ‘Below Reading Age’ are readers whose performance did not achieve the objective of the syllabus set for the educational level, which means they have not acquired the skills and sub-skills of reading for the designated level. Students have gaps in reading at their educational level, partially or not meeting the requirements speci-fied in the Malaysian English Language Syllabus.

Identifying Individual Student’s Specific Reading Ability

Teachers can conveniently refer to the Descriptors of Students’ Reading Abilities to iden-tify their students’ reading ability. For example, Secondary 4 students who are in Band 5 are categorized as ‘Meet Reading Age’, those who are in Band 6 are categorized as ‘Above Reading Age’, and students who are in Bands 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively are cat-egorized as ‘Below Reading Age’. Next, the teachers can refer to the Descriptors of Students’ Reading Abilities to find out what their students know or do not know at the different Performance Bands. For example, from the descriptors, teachers will know that students in Band 1 are those who have difficulty locating the main ideas and supporting details when answering the literal comprehension questions. Consequently, most of the students in this category merely guess the answers. It appears that they also have diffi-culty reading and understanding the cause and effect relationships in passages. They are unable to acquire the meaning of words by using contextual clues, unable to draw con-clusions in simple texts and make inferences.

Discussion

The test scores obtained from the standardized reading comprehension test are catego-rized into Performance Bands (Band 1 to Band 6). From the benchmarking results, the students are categorized into their various performance standards. At the micro level, the ESL teachers can match the students’ performance to the Reading Matrix to figure out whether the students are ‘Above Reading Age’, ‘Meet Reading Age’ or ‘Below Reading Age’. Consecutively, the teachers can refer to the Performance Standards to find out what the students at each level of reading performance are able to do or not able to do. Finally, the teachers can also refer to the Descriptors of Students’ Reading Abilities to get a more in depth understanding of the specific reading ability of each student.

The findings revealed that many of the students do not ‘Meet Reading Age’ at their educational levels. It is not unanticipated to note that the teachers do not know what their students can do or cannot do because there are no indicators provided together with the curriculum or test instruments to be mobilized as a guide to indicate the students’ specific reading abilities. It would be very helpful if the teachers are provided with clearly defined sets of Reading Performance Indicators in which teachers can measure and assess stu-dents’ reading performance. This is where the developed set of indicators is able to serve



Mohamed et al. 281

the purpose of providing explicit information about what the students are able to do at each Performance Band.

While at the macro level or group level, the ESL teachers can find out the reading achievement of a specific group of students. Though there are students who failed, i.e. they were ‘Below Standard’ or below their Reading Age, there were no indicators to inform the teachers about which sub-skills of reading this group of students had diffi-culty getting to grips with. Therefore, by benchmarking the students’ reading abilities, teachers can track students’ achievement and make adjustments to their teaching instruc-tion. From the findings, the researchers came up with the profile of the different groups of performers i.e. ‘Above Reading Age Performers’, ‘Meet Reading Age Performers’ or ‘Below Reading Age Performers’. The profile of these performers can be used as predic-tors to forecast which groups of students are performing, which groups of students are failing and which groups of students need immediate help.

Conclusion

We can now tell how well the ESL students from Secondary 1 to Secondary 5 in the selected school are performing. By examining the students’ reading abilities at macro and micro levels, the English Language teachers can now plan their teaching instruction and materials to meet the needs of their learners. Furthermore, the District or State Education Departments and policy makers can plan what needs to be done to improve the English Language reading standard in general.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Research University Grant (Universiti Sains Malaysia – 1001/PGURU/811039).

References

Abdul Rashid Mohamed, Lin SE and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail (2010) Making more sense of reading scores: developing reading evaluation and decoding system. English Language Teaching 3(3): 35-46.

Alderson JC (2000) Assessing Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Arshad Abd Samad (2005) Testing and Evaluation in an ESL Context. Kuala Lumpur: Open

University Malaysia.Asha BD (1999) Student-generated questions in enhancing reading comprehension. Unpublished

master’s thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang.Baguley P (2001) Performance Management in a Week. London: Hodder & Stoughton.Blair RW (ed) (1982) Innovative Approaches to Language Teaching. Boston, MA: Heinle &

Heinle Publication.Block CC (2000) Reading instruction in the new millennium. In: Costa AL (ed) Developing Minds

(3rd edn). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 472-90.Board of Studies, Victoria, Australia (2000) Curriculum & Standards Framework II. Carlton:

Board of Studies.Caldwell JS (2002) Reading Assessment: A Primer for Teachers and Tutors. New York: The

Guilford Press.




Croft K (1980) Readings on English as a Second Language: For Teachers and Teacher Trainees. Cambridge: Winthrop Publishers, Inc.

Dubin F, Eskey DE, and Grabe W (eds) (1986) Teaching Second Language Reading for Academic Purposes. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Education Institute Doha, Qatar (2005) National Curriculum Standards for the State of Qatar. English: Grades K to 12. Doha: Education Institute.

Holloway JH (1999) Improving the reading abilities of adolescents. Educational Leadership 57(2): 80-81.

Hooper DW (2002) Reading Success Where No Child Slips By (accessed 28 March 2004). Available at: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/mOJSD/1_59/81220141/p1article.jhtml

Horton T (ed) (1990) Assessment Debates. London: Hodder and Stoughton.Illinois State Board of Education (2004) Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE):

Teachers’ Handbook 2003-2004 (accessed 4 July 2004). Available at: http://www.isbe.net/assessment/PDF/2004/PSAETchHndbk.pdf

Lin SE (2009) Malaysian students’ English language reading standards: the case of Penang. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang.

Ministry of Education of Malaysia (2000) Sukatan Pelajaran Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah: Bahasa Inggeris. Pusat Perkembangan Kurikulum, Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia.

Masters GN (2006) Continuity and growth: key consideration in educational improvement and accountability. In a paper presented at 3rd International Conference on Measurement and Evaluation in Education, Penang, 13-15 February 2006.

Mok SS (2000) Ilmu Pendidikan untuk KPLI (Kursus Perguruan Lepas Ijazah). Subang Jaya: Kumpulan Budiman Sdn. Bhd.

National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) (2005) Reading Framework for the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (accessed 20 May 2007). Available at: http://www.nagb.org/pubs/r_framework_05/ch3.html

National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) (2010) NAEP Overview (accessed 18 April 2011). Available at: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/

Oosterhof A (2001) Classroom Application of Educational Measurement (3rd edn.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Turnbull J (2011) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (accessed 7 June 2011). Available at: www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/reading-age

Stanovich KE (1986) Matthew effects in reading: some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly 21: 360-407.



Documents

The Potency of 'READS' to Inform Students' Reading Ability