Measuring student knowledge and skills

parts of the text is the third distinguishing characteristic.
Figure 1.
Characteristics distinguishing the five aspects of reading
Reading literacy
Use information primarily from within the text
Broad
understanding
Draw upon outside knowledge
Structure
Content
Consider text as a whole
Focus on specific parts of text
Reflect on
content of text
Independent pieces
of information
Understanding
of relationships
Retrieve
information
Develop an
interpretation
Reflect on
form of text
Figure 1.
Characteristics distinguishing the five aspects of reading
Reading literacy
Use information primarily from within the text
Broad
understanding
Draw upon outside knowledge
Structure
Content
Consider text as a whole
Focus on specific parts of text
Reflect on
content of text
Independent pieces
of information
Understanding
of relationships
Retrieve
information
Develop an
interpretation
Reflect on
form of text

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Measuring Student Knowledge and Skills
30
OECD 1999
– The fourth characteristic marks whether the reader is directed to deal with the content or sub-
stance of the text rather than its form or structure.
The five aspects of reading are represented in the last line of Figure 1, at the ends of the various
branches. Starting at the top of the figure and following each branch one can see which characteristics are
associated with each aspect.
While Figure 1 necessarily simplifies the content and complexity of each aspect, an initial attempt is
made here to define these aspects of understanding a text operationally, and to associate them with par-
ticular kinds of questions and directives. Although each aspect is discussed in terms of a single text, it
should be understood that they also apply to multiple texts when these form a unit.
5
The description of
each aspect has two parts. The first provides a general overview of the aspect, while the second describes