Imagine that you have a test coming up. Don’t want to know what’s on it?
That may seem like a fair question, but millions of children will sit for reading tests this spring with no idea what they will cover.
This approach to reading tests makes the US an international outlier. According to David Steiner, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, most countries test children based on core knowledge that is widely communicated in advance. American-style tests do the opposite. Their content is a surprise to everyone, so no one can get ahead of themselves and prepare unfairly. But this effectively views reading comprehension as a separate, isolated skill, separate from background knowledge, and researchers such as Hugh Catts have pointed out that this does not fit with the research into how children learn to read.
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Comprehension is a function of the ability to decode the letters on the page, combine them into words, and then understand what those words mean.
But whether people can understand what they read also depends on their knowledge of that subject. Writers such as Nat Wexler and Robert Pondiscio helped popularize what is informally known as the baseball study, in which researchers divided high school students into four groups based on their reading skills and knowledge about baseball. Students were then assessed on their understanding of a new passage about a baseball game.
As expected, those who were strong readers and had some familiarity with baseball did best. But crucially, children who were not particularly strong readers but who knew the sport were able to understand the unfamiliar passage better than the supposedly strong readers who did not have much prior knowledge. For these students, background information was more powerful than incoming reading ability.
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Unfortunately, the American approach to literacy testing attempts to measure reading comprehension alone. This disconnect is a big reason why it’s so much harder to move the needle in reading than in math; math test scores move up or down more easily in response to instruction, while reading scores do not.
But worst of all is the effect the tests have had on reading instruction in schools. Like Doug Lemov, director of Uncommon Schools and author of Teach like a champion, A recent Education Next essay highlights that English classes are increasingly devoted to reading a series of short, unrelated passages and asking students to figure out the main idea behind them.
There is a derogatory term for this type of instruction: teaching to the test. But what if states had tests worth learning about?
A pilot program in Louisiana could provide an alternative model for the country. The state has been experimenting with a new type of exam that closely follows a state-created curriculum called Guidebooks. The test is administered three times a year, in the fall, winter and spring.
Other states and districts may use such a staggered order, but Louisiana is unique in that it specifically states which books will be covered on each test for each grade level. For example, seventh graders might be expected to be asked about it The giverby Lois Lowry, in the fall, and other clearly identified books are chosen for various grades and exams.
The test itself is also unique. It contains three sections, in which students are asked to read an unfamiliar passage that is somehow related to a book they have covered in class; answer questions about this; and then compare it with the known text.
The point is not to delve students into the plot details of a particular book; it’s about fully immersing them in a high-quality piece of literature and then asking them to explain what they’ve learned. That helps students benefit from what psychologists call the testing effect, where taking an exam helps deepen the learning process. In this way, the Louisiana pilot functions more like Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate programs than the typical state assessment, which asks students to find the main idea of a text they have never seen before.
Teachers also seem to like Louisiana’s approach. In a focus group, one person reported: “We love these assessments, they are FAIR for our kids and our teachers and we are excited about the future of [English Language Arts] instruction if these are present.”
The test has also changed classroom instructional practices. One teacher told John White, the former Louisiana governor behind the pilot program, “We used to spend time preparing for the tests and just practice. [state] to test. We don’t do that anymore. We spend our time diving into the unit and making sure students have a good understanding, as much background knowledge as we can give them.”
It’s unclear whether Louisiana will be able to expand testing beyond the current pilot period, but it still offers lessons for state and federal policymakers.
First, state leaders need to take a hard look at their literacy tests; Tests that serve more as general IQ tests than as true measures of student learning can inadvertently encourage teachers to focus on low-level skills. Critics of all political stripes may worry about a state endorsing a particular curriculum or position, but without taking a stand, states are left with content-free tests like the ones they have now.
Second, even places like Louisiana, which understand the educational benefits of a high-quality curriculum, still face transition challenges. The feds granted Louisiana the flexibility to pilot test the new model, but it did not require additional funding and the state had to separately apply for a competitive grant to build the test. Furthermore, the state had to conduct both the old and new tests at the same time.
Even worse, the FBI mandated that the new model would produce results that could be compared to the old one. A group of civil rights organizations led by Education Trust pushed back, suggesting that the rules “allow for an alternative method of demonstrating comparability that will…provide an equally rigorous and statistically valid comparison.” The Biden administration has indicated a willingness to help states be more innovative with their testing, but clinging too closely to an old system is a great way to stifle innovation.
These challenges are significant, but not insurmountable. Amid a national push to reshape the way reading is taught, state leaders should take a closer look at how their tests can prompt schools to make more effort to build students’ background knowledge and get kids to spend more time reading read and discuss. read whole books.
Disclosure: Chad Aldeman is an occasional consultant for NWEA, one of the organizations behind the Louisiana testing pilot.
