Reading Comprehension...

[evilhippo]

Every once in a while, someone brings something to my attention that just makes me sad inside on pretty much every education-related and reading-related level possible. Something like this: the New York State exam test-writers yoinked a surreal fable out of a longer work by a children's author, boiled it down, and then added some multiple choice

Comments

[zolac_no_miko]

Iiiiiiiii think it's a really stupid freaking story and a really freaking stupid set of test questions, but... yeah I came to the same conclusions you did. The story-and-questions set was stupid, baffling, and poorly written, but not actually difficult. Simple logic.

[evilhippo]

Yeah, I'm not going to say the questions themselves weren't really poorly written. (Also the author of the original story the pieces was excerpted from appears to always write like that, even when complaining about how stupid the excerpt sounds, so...)

But the more I think about it, the more I think that seemingly-nonsensical, self-contained pieces of fiction might actually be really useful for the sort of things standardized reading comprehension tests are supposed to test for. That way you can break away from people relying on outside knowledge to bluster through, and can focus on their understanding of the particular details and mechanics within the story alone. In order for that to be effective, though, it would have to be an up-front feature of the test rather than something that comes out of nowhere. I kind of fear that what we're teaching in terms of reading comprehension doesn't rely much on what's going on in the story itself but what you (or, more specifically, your teacher) think[s] it's supposed to be doing.

[apple_pathways]

But the more I think about it, the more I think that seemingly-nonsensical, self-contained pieces of fiction might actually be really useful for the sort of things standardized reading comprehension tests are supposed to test for.

I agree. Though (in my opinion) this test was executed poorly, I think the idea is sound.

More than anything, I am sick to death of standardized testing being the be-all and end-all of education. I have Thoughts about what's wrong with our education system, but I don't have anything but anecdotal evidence and my own personal opinion to back it up. Suffice to say: we're not doing a good job of teaching children to think, and we're not instilling in them a sense of personal agency in their education.

[evilhippo]

I have to say, I'm pretty sure what I'm imagining as the ideal scenario for this type of excerpt/question set-up is not at all what the test-writers had in mind (I think they just thought the story was funny and would add some levity to the test, then ran into trouble coming up with questions about it. I mean... "Why did they eat the pineapple?" Seriously?) I just wish everyone was discussing something closer to that problem (and the problem of standardized tests at large pretty much not providing any useful information) instead of complaining about how the questions can't be answered.

I'm in the same boat... or rather, I think the boat I'm in is probably less seaworthy than yours. I can sense that something really needs to be fixed, but all I have are my own crackpot education ideas backed up by about 20 hours total per year working with kids. It's just really easy to get my lit-degree hackles up when people complain about reading comprehension. (-;