Diagnosing reading problems in L2 reading
by Michael Rabbidge
Every now and then, teachers are confronted with students who struggle to improve their L2 reading proficiency, and no matter how much time the teacher and student spend on practicing reading, progress seems to have stalled.
There is little said about this in general reading circles, and more often than not there is little time to deal with such problems by teachers due an array of related, and sometimes unrelated, practical issues. Here we will discuss some basic principles as outlined by Nation and Macalister (2021) to help guide anyone wishing to diagnose L2 reading issues and look at some simple tools that can be employed in ascertain the weaknesses students may have in their L2 reading.
Four basic principles that should guide any diagnosing of L2 reading issues are given here, starting with the need to make sure that any diagnosis is done at the individual level rather than as a larger class effort. This is to ensure that teachers can guarantee a focus on the student and spend the necessary time to isolate potential issues that can be addressed.
The next principle is to start any diagnosis by focusing first on the smallest reading units, such as basic word recognition and identification, before then steadily proceeding up to larger areas of comprehension. This would mean that after confirming that word recognition and identification is not the issue, focus should shift to syntactic knowledge to ascertain if any issues exist there, before moving on to relationships between clause level units of meaning and higher forms of comprehension processing such as the ability to use background knowledge skills like inferencing.
Vitally, students should feel a relative sense of comfort during this process, so relying on actual test formatting and contexts is not always desirable as they tend to create a heightened level of stress for most students.
In addition, be sure not to rely on a single test or diagnostic tool to inform your final decision on what the potential issue may be. Employ a number of tools to diagnose to guarantee a greater data set of the student’s actual reading proficiency. Listed below are examples of different tools that can be used in any diagnosis of a student’s reading proficiency:
Reading aloud
· Checks word recognition (even eyesight)
· Use easier texts before moving to more difficult texts
· Issues with EFL/ESL due to spoken production/pronunciation
Vocabulary test
· Tests for vocabulary knowledge
· Difficult if spoken word bank is larger than reading word bank (word recognition issue)
Tests of grammatical knowledge
· Translation useful here
· Validity influenced by incorrect word by word translation for sentence level comprehension
· Sentence completion tests alternative ( I was very surprised by ______.)
Testing speed
· Speed can affect comprehension
These principles and tools, although admittedly not exhaustive, can hopefully provide educators with a pathway for effectively determining why their students may have issues with their L2 reading.
References and resources
Nation, I.S.P., & Macalister, J. (2021). Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing. New York, NY: Routledge