Assessment of Reading Comprehension in Spanish -Speaking Children: Inferential and Monitoring Abilities

CANET JURIC, L., ANDRÉS, M. L., INTROZZI, I. URQUIJO, S. & BURIN, D.

Education Science and Psychology

Georgian Technical University

Lugar: Tbilisi; Año: 2011 vol. 2 p. 8 - 16

1512-1801

This study sought to design and validate two tests to assess inferential and monitoring abilities in reading comprehension. For the Inferences test, we adapted an inference task, and for Monitoring, we designed an error detection task. Both took into account psycholinguist aspects (type of inference, type of inconsistency), as well as Spanish grammar, lexicon, and general knowledge. A sample of 108 children aged 8-9 years old completed both tasks, along with Word Reading and Non-Word Reading Children, Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies. Reliability of both tests was adequate. For the Inferences task, there was a main effect of Type of Inference; for the Monitoring task, there was a main effect of type of Type of Inconsistency. Correlations between Inferences and Monitoring were significant and middle sized, as well as with Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies, but correlations between these four measures and decoding (a combination of Word and Non-Word Reading) were low and non-significant. Overall, the tests seem reliable and valid measures of reading comprehension inferences and monitoring for local Spanish speaking children.