The Post Oral Reading Cloze Test: New Link between Oral Reading and Comprehension

Abstract

The link between oral reading responses and comprehension performance bears strengthening and promises new insights into the reading process and new tools for interpreting reading performance. In a cloze test, the subject faces a passage with blanks substituted for words in some fashion. The subject is asked to write the word that fits best in the blank (Wilson Taylor, 1953). When a blank is substituted for every fifth word, the cloze test is an indicator of literal comprehension as measured by multiple choice comprehension tests (John Bormuth, 1969, p. 365). A conventional cloze test is administered without prior contact of the subject with the passage. A post oral reading cloze test is administered immediately following an oral reading of the passage by the subject. This study investigates the relationship between performance on a conventional cloze test and performance on a post oral reading cloze test. Three questions center on the relationship between conventional cloze test performance and post oral reading cloze test performance. 1) Can conventional cloze test scores be predicted from post oral reading cloze test scores? 2) Is the relationship strong enough to warrant use of the post oral reading cloze test as comprehension criteria in oral reading research? 3) Is the relationship strong enough to warrant use of the post oral reading cloze test as a measure of comprehension in reading diagnosis? These questions guide the study.