- Studied lexical and discourse elements of texts 
- Variations in texts can measure reading comprehension at different grades 
- Complexity indices correspond to different reading levels and abilities

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Millis, K., Magliano, J., & Todaro, S. (2006). Measuring discourse-level processes with verbal protocols and latent semantic analysis. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10(3), 225-240. 
- Deane, P., Sheehan, K. M., Sabatini, J., Futagi, Y., & Kostin, I. (2006). Differences in text structure and its implications for assessment of struggling readers. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10(3), 257-275. 
- Rayner, K., Chace, K. H., Slattery, T. J., & Ashby, J. (2006). Eye movements as reflections of comprehension processes in reading. Scientific studies of reading, 10(3), 241-255. 
- Cutting, L. E., & Scarborough, H. S. (2006). Prediction of reading comprehension: Relative contributions of word recognition, language proficiency, and other cognitive skills can depend on how comprehension is measured. Scientific studies of reading, 10(3), 277-299. 
- Francis, D. J., Snow, C. E., August, D., Carlson, C. D., Miller, J., & Iglesias, A. (2006). Measures of reading comprehension: A latent variable analysis of the diagnostic assessment of reading comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10(3), 301-322. 

Measuring reading comprehension - studies discussed

Fletcher, J. M. (2006). Measuring reading comprehension. Scientific studies of reading, 10(3), 323-330. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532799xssr1003_7

Measuring reading comprehension

- Focused on think-aloud responses 
- Analyzed with latent semantic analysis (LSA) 
- Results obtained through examining LSA on a Nelson-Denny reading comprehension test 
- Questions are text and inference-based 

Measuring reading comprehension - studies discussed: Millis et al. 

Measuring reading comprehension - studies discussed: Deane et al. 

- Paid attention to eye movements 
- Eye movements can demonstrate difficulty and how readers work through comprehension inconsistencies in a passage
- Regressive eye movements indicate readers do not fully understand the text so they need to go back and re-read previous parts

Measuring reading comprehension - studies discussed: Rayner et al.

Used a latent variable approach on two standardized tests to examine the effects of different models on the relationship between decoding, language skills, and reading comprehension. Found that these relationships depend on how reading comprehension is measured and assessed, and there is a stronger connections to Woodcock-Johnson-III Passage Comprehension test
- Woodcock-Johnson-III Passage Comprehension: a subtest with sentences and short passages where results are measured with a cloze procedure (words omitted)
- Diagnostic Assessment of Reading Comprehension (DARC): 3-sentence passages that require decoding, memorizing texts, and inferring and tests access and integration of knowledge using linguistic discourse methods 

Measuring reading comprehension - studies discussed: Francis et al.

Cutting and Scarborough (2006) studied the correlation between inference-making and how reading comprehension is assessed across three different tests. They found that the relationship between reading comprehension and oral language skills varied depending on the test used:

- **Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT)**: Students read short, two- to three-sentence texts in silence and answer short, open-ended questions for each text (one literal and one inferential question).
- **Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test**: Students silently read texts with a maximum of fifteen sentences and answer multiple-choice questions.
- **Gray Oral Reading Test (Third Edition)**: Students read texts of six to seven sentences out loud, followed by answering multiple-choice questions without referring back to the passages.

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