Reading Assessment and Illettrisme

Abstract

The scope and consequences of functional illiteracy in industrialised countries are first examined in the French context and discussion is then focused on the assessment of reading skills. The paper divides forms of assessment into two categories: the global approach and the analytical approach. The global approach is characterised by assessment of reading competence through results obtained on reading tasks. Data are mainly obtained from classic psychometric measures and thus are liable to the same drawbacks as are encountered when these methods are used in other domains. The analytical approach is based on the identification of elementary skills and strategies implemented by the reader, as defined by underlying reading and the reader models which make more or less implicit reference to the reader's metalinguistic competence acquired primarily through the learning of grammar.

>Examples of studies using the global and analytical approaches are reviewed and suggestions put forward for further research.