LEARN NC

people reading on benches

Ongoing assessment for reading

By Jeanne Gunther

2.4 Checking comprehension

Many assessments for students’ comprehension contain questions to be answered by the student. Miscue analysis makes retelling the performance of comprehension. When a student completes a reading, the teacher should facilitate both an unaided and aided retelling of the story. Just as miscue analysis is a window to the student’s conceptions about reading as a process, retelling is a window to what meaning the student has made of the text.

Unaided retelling

The teacher praises the reader and asks the student to tell the story in his/her own words.

Aided retelling

The teacher asks questions of the student by building on the events supplied in the unaided retelling. For example, a student, unaided, mentioned Jack trading his cow for some beans, but did not tell the reaction of his mother to this transaction while retelling “Jack and the Beanstalk.” In an aided retelling, the teacher might say, “You mentioned Jack trading his cow for some beans. What did his mother think of that?” The teacher would not, however, ask, “What happened after Jack’s mother scolded him for trading the cow for beans?” This is an acceptable aided prompt if the student answered the first phrasing of the question by saying that Jack’s mother was mad about the trade and scolded him.