Recent Developments in Reading Assessment in the USA National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): An Analysis of Conceptual, Digital, Psychometric, and Policy Trends

In his presentation, Professor David Pearson, who serves as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Reading for NAEP provided an update on recent innovations in the conceptualisation and operationalisation of NAEP Reading. He explained that the Standing Committee provides oversight on passage selection, item development, and scoring to the Educational Testing Service and discussed the conceptual bases for new digital initiatives, as well as the progress made to identify and resolve challenges to an entirely new digital delivery of NAEP Reading. Professor Pearson also commented upon NAEP reading developments in relation to those recently undertaken by PIRLS and PISA.
Professor Maggie Snowling, President of St John's College, University of Oxford acted as the discussant and focused her presentation upon the reasons and causes of poor reading comprehension. She explained that poor comprehenders have good decoding but they do not use context to support word reading as well as typical readers do.