Assessing Reading

The fields of reading comprehension per se and second language reading comprehension are vast indeed, and an attempt to survey them will, of necessity, be attenuated in a chapter of this size. As a consequence, I will limit my discussion to six areas: 1) general comments concerning areas of interest in reading research and assessment, 2) the adaptation of a suitable first-language reading comprehension model for second-language assessment, 3) the reliance on a top-down model of reading comprehension, 4) the validity of multiple-choice reading comprehension tests, 5) research on behavioral anchoring, and 6) the testing of reading comprehension in a CAT (Computer Adaptive Testing) context.