The Assessment of Reading Comprehension: A Review of Practices—Past, Present, and Future

The purpose of this chapter is to build an argument for a fresh line of inquiry into the assessment of reading comprehension. We intend to accomplish that goal by providing a rich and detailed historical account of reading comprehension, both as a theoretical phenomenon and an operational construct that lives and breathes in classrooms throughout America. We review both basic research, which deals with reading comprehension largely in its theoretical aspect, and applied research, which is much more concerned about how comprehension gets operationalized in classrooms, reading materials, and tests. With a renewed professional interest in reading comprehension (e.g., Rand Study Group, 2001), it is an optimal time to undertake a new initiative in the area of reading comprehension assessment. For a host of reasons, many having to do with curricular politics, reading comprehension has been placed on a back burner for well over 15 years. It is time it returned to a central role in discussions of reading. To do so, it needs our rapt and collective attention at this particular

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