Qualitative reading inventory(QRI)
Qualitative reading inventory(QRI) is an individually administered informal reading inventory (Kabuto, 2020).The inventory provide diagnostic information on which conditions a young learner can identify words and succefully comprehend text. The young learners are put in conditions that are thought to result in unsuccefull word identification, decoding and text comprehension. The QRI provide useful information used by the teacher to estimate a young learner reading level.QRI provide both narrative and expository text.QRI is designed to assess a young learner’s prior topical knowledge, this knowledge helps the examiner to know whether a learner is familiar with text or not. University of Central Florida students carried out an assessment using Qualitative Reading Inventory on the reading ability of a young student named Pam, as she wrote a story about Amelia Earhart. She dressed like her in 3rd grade. The assessment goal was to find out Pam’s word recognition rate based on miscues, her comprehension rate based on her responses to comprehension questions, determine the total correct implicit and explicit questions and determine whether the grade level passage was at the student overall independent, instructions or frustration level. Additionally, the assessment was aimed at finding out the reading attitude another student named Heather.
Word Recognition
For this assessment the University of Central Florida students used the QR1-5. As Alsawar and Bryyant-Friedrich (2017) highlights, QRI-5 is essential because it provide word list and passages from pre-primer to high school level. Therefore, a young learner can directly compare words read in isolation and in context. This is very important for young learners who are unable to recognize words on words list, they can be able to identify the words in context.QRI-5 also measure the learner’s comprehension by looking at how the young learner answers explicit and implicit comprehension questions and analyzing how a learner summarizes the comprehension.
For QRI-5 the pre-primer word list contains 17 word while all the other words list has 20 words. The word list is designed to evaluate the correctness of word recognition, speed and how automatic a learner can identify a word (Altani et al., 2020). In assessing Pam, the students first measured her word recognition. In word recognitions test, the total miscues are counted to determine the oral reading level of a student. Any deviation from the printed text is counted as a total miscue. The students assessed Pam from a passage about Amelia Earhart. She had 41 miscues out of the 263 words in the passage. A miscue is ether an insertion, omission, substitution, reversal or self-correction. For this study, the results revealed that Pams miscues were as a result of excessive insertion and substitution. For example, she substituted “adventured” for adventure, “most” instead for must. She also inserted “fly”, “with”, “ocean”. However, these miscues did not change the meaning of the word and were mostly grammatically correct. To calculate Pams word recognition;
Total words=263 Total miscues=41
263-41=222
222/263=0.844
0.844*100%=84%
The students observed that Pam made a lot of substitution that did not make sense in the narrative. However, the substitution was phonetically similar to the text. Consequently, the word recognition test revealed that she was at frustration level when she did the oral reading in context.
The results revealed that Pam reading fluency was good although she was slow. They attributed the fact that she was slow to the fact that she was still decoding, which slowed her down. Her reading rate fell on the lower end of the normal rate which was 20 words per minute. The students concluded that was a good level to work with.
Comprehension
Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read (Pendidikan & Pengajaran, 2020). Three measures of comprehensions are used: a retelling measure of what a learner remembers from the comprehension; exciplict questions (those that were directly stated in the passage); and implicit questions (where a learner has to reason in order to answer the question). Both retelling and the question measures are used because they do not measure the same aspect of comprehension.
The retelling measure allow for easy evaluation of the text structure. The more the learner’s retelling ability match up with the structure of the passage, the greater the chance to recall (Pendidikan & Pengajaran, 2020). Retelling shows how a learner is able to organize the information from the passage. On the contrast, questions have for the longest time been used to assess comprehension for learners, they consist of information that may fuel the reasoning process. In a passage, the goal of the main character is the focus in which all the other information is interpreted. Thus, in all narrative passages the first question ask who the main character is and their goal. The other questions are designed to provide relevant information for the learner to understand the text.
For this study, the students evaluated Pams comprehension based on how she answered the comprehension questions on Amelia Earhart. The results revealed that Pam’s way of answering the questions was basic with lack of important details. She left out relevant parts that were necessary to show complete understanding of the comprehension passage. Thus out of the possible 12 points pam got 10 correct. She had 2 miscues. The comprehension test revealed that Pam was at instructional level.
Total points 12- total miscues 2=10
10/12=0.833
0.8338*100=83%
Explicit and Implicit Questions
As Altun (2017) highlights explicit and implicit questions can be used in text to aid in the learners thinking and understanding of the text content. The cognitive challenge and comprehension focus is classified by examining the question and the text that a learner has to process in order to respond. This gives the difference between textually implicit and textually explicit question known as question answer-relationship (Altun, 2018). Explicit questions are questions that the answers are right there in the text, they are clear and fully expressed. On the other hand, Implicit questions are questions that require the learner to reason based on the text information.
Textually explicit questions are assumed to be easier as the question details and the correct answers can be found in the same sentence. Textually implicit questions on the other hand requires a learner to understand what is explicitly written and also the inferential understanding of what the text suggest. A study was carried out by Ushiro in 2012 on Japanese students’ scores on a reading text, it had both explicit and implicit questions. The results revealed that the text explicit question had more correct answers compared to the text implicit questions. Additionally, the two types of reading skills impacted differently how the learners interpreted short stories.
Scoring guide
| No: | Criteria | Score |
| 1 | The meaning and structure are correct | 1 |
| 2 | The meaning and the structure are incorrect | 0 |
For this study, Pam was issued with eight questions;4 textually explicit and 4 textually implicit. However, she fell under the frustration level because she scored 2.
Number of correct explicit-0
Number of correct implicit-2
Total =2
Independent, Instructional, and Frustration Levels
Research has revealed that learners who read and re-read oral comprehension as they are guided are most likely to be competent readers. Repeated oral reading is known to increase the chances of word recognition, the accuracy and the speed. It also improves passage comprehension for young learners. There are three reading levels that are used to assess a young learner’s reading abilities namely, independent, instructional, and frustration level. To score accurately above 90% in word list and 98% and more in oral reading in context represent an independent level. Learners should be able to answer 90% of the comprehension question correctly. The learner has oral reading accuracy, comprehension and is able to decode independently without the support of teacher. Instructional level is represented by between 70% and 85% accuracy in word list, and between 90% and 97% accuracy in oral reading. Learners at this level should be able to correctly answer between 67% and 89% of the comprehension questions. The learner can read the text quickly with a few errors. This the highest level that a child can read with minimal assistance. Frustration level is represented by below 70% accuracy in word recognition, below 90%in oral reading and below 67% in comprehension reading.
Reading levels criteria
| Measures | ||||
| Reading level | World list | Oral reading in context | Comprehension | |
| Independent | 90% -100% | 98% and above | Above 90% | |
| Instructional | 70% - 85% | 90% - 97% | 67% - 89% | |
| Frustration | Below 70% | Below 90% | Below 67% | |
For this study, Pam scored 84% in word recognitions hence was at Frustration level. For comprehension of the passage, she fell under instructional level as she scored 83%. Therefore, Pam was at frustration reading level in general. The students thus concluded that Pam needed to be assessed on a lower level in the QRI.
Reading attitude
Reading attitude refer to the feeling towards reading that leads to one adopting or avoiding positive reading habits (Chotitham & Wongwanich, 2014).Evaluating a learner’s reading attitude is essential in comprehensive reading. The knowledge about a leaners reading attitude is useful to teachers in planning, and evaluating instructional program made for individual or group of learners. Research shows that a learner’s attitude plays a major role in whether they become a competent reader. There are a number of factors that have been proved to have a major influence on reading attitude of young learners. These factors are; parental involvement, self-concept, teachers, socio-economic status, and classroom environment.
University of central Florida students also carried out another assessment on another learner named Heather on her reading attitude. The students provided questions and required Heather to answer the question about reading by circling a Garfield. She was provided with 20 questions. The happiest Garfield represented 4 points, slightly smiley Garfield had 3 points, the mildly upset Garfield contained 2 points and lastly the very upset Garfield had 1 point (Chotitham & Wongwanich, 2014). Heather circled 6 happiest Garfield, 8 slightly smiley Garfield ,6 mildly upset Garfield and 0 very upset Garfield. The sum of her total points was 60. The points show that Heather fell on the slightly smiley Garfield meaning she had a fair attitude toward reading
Attitude survey scoring guide
| Points | Garfield |
| 4 points | Happiest Garfield |
| 3 points | Slightly smiley Garfield |
| 2 points | Mildly upset Garfield |
| 1 point | Very upset Garfield |
Heathers points;
Happiest Garfield=6 6*4=24
Slightly smiley Garfield =8 8*3=24
Mildly upset Garfield=6 6*2=12
Total=60 points
Conclusion
University of central Florida students conducted this assessment on a 3rd grade student named Pam to assess her reading and comprehension abilities. They used Qualitative Assessment Inventory-5 to find out a reading intervention for her. The assessment result revealed that Pam was at frustration level in word recognition. In the midst of the assessment Pam improved her performance during comprehension test. She fell under the instructional level. Therefore, she generally fell under the frustration level for the whole assessment. The students concluded that Pam needed to be assessed on a lower level in the QRI.On the other hand, for the assessment carried out on Heather. The student concluded that she had a relatively fair attitude towards reading as the result placed her in the Slightly smiley Garfield. Hence forth, the student suggested that further research should be done to find out the different strategies that could be layed out to promote positive reading attitude, because attitude has a direct impact on the reading process. However, because only two learners were involved in this assessment the students concluded that it is not necessary to generalize result based on this study. More studies should be carried out with more participant as well as other reading levels test.
References
Altani, A., Protopapas, A., Katopodi, K., & Georgiou, G. K. (2020). From individual word recognition to word list and text reading fluency. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(1), 22–39. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000359
Altun, D. (2018). The Efficacy of Multimedia Stories in Preschoolers’ Explicit and Implicit Story Comprehension. Early Childhood Education Journal, 46(6), 629–642. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-018-0916-8
Chotitham, S., & Wongwanich, S. (2014). The Reading Attitude Measurement for Enhancing Elementary School Students’ Achievement. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 3213–3217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.737
Kabuto, B. (2020). Assessment Literacy: Implications for the Literacy Professional. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 30(1). https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/lls/vol30/iss1/5
Pendidikan, J., & Pengajaran, D. (2020). The Role of Critical Reading to Promote Students’ Critical Thinking and Reading Comprehension. 53, 318–327. https://doi.org/10.23887/jpp.v53i1