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How Authentic Passage Selection Supports the Assessment of Reading Comprehension…in Any Language

May 25, 2021 -By: -In: Curriculum Translation, Test and Assessment Translation - Comments Off on How Authentic Passage Selection Supports the Assessment of Reading Comprehension…in Any Language

“The more you read, the more things you know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go!” —Dr. Seuss

Reading is the most important skill that children will learn and refine over the course of their education. Reading not only develops the mind but it will serve as the foundation for their successful participation in society. Which is why it’s vital to correctly and appropriately measure K-12 students’ progress and achievement in the subject through the use of language arts assessments.

Like other subject assessments, K-12 language arts assessments should be curriculum aligned and they may include multiple-choice, true/false and essay questions. But where language arts assessments distinguish themselves is their leading use of authentic passages.

Authentic passages are specially chosen for use in assessments, but unlike assessment items, they are not written especially for assessments. Authentic passages are written texts (or excerpts of them) that are plucked from the wide world, like published books and articles. Yet, it’s best practice to select passages that students might encounter on their own, but are not likely to. That means no passages from school-assigned or school-recommended books.

Authentic passages typically fall into two types: informational texts and literary texts. Informational texts include argumentative essays, biographies and personal letters; literary texts include drama, poetry and myths.

While there are a lot of good texts out there to choose from, not everyone knows how to find the right authentic passages for an assessment—especially when it comes to choosing authentic passages in languages other than English like Spanish, Arabic and Russian.

Successful authentic passages should be interesting and appropriate for diverse groups of test takers. Selected texts should also meet strict criteria in areas such as grade level, Lexile level, learning standard and word count. And to ensure that they do, Responsive Translation recruits only qualified educators and psychologists who are trained for assessment and language arts for the selection of authentic passages.

In addition, any authentic passage to be included in an assessment must first secure the proper permissions from the publisher. Passage libraries can be useful for this, but they may not always have the texts you need, which may require IP investigation. International permissions will also vary. If you require some assistance in this area, Responsive Translation’s legal partners can help.

Responsive Translation provides a wide range of language and education-focused services, including translation and adaptation for educational assessments, original item development and authentic passage selection. For more information, please get in touch at 646-847-3309 or [email protected].