Development and evaluation of Cloze screening tests as measures of comprehension ability in adult readers.

This project was designed to develop an assessment appropriate to NZ adults with reading difficulties. It is intended to provide a reading: comprehension level with which teachers and tutors can make informed decisions on their students’ programmes. The research indicates that the Cloze technique is a reliable, valid and efficient method to assess reading comprehension. Passages of interest to adults were selected on their reading difficulties and trialled on subjects with a wide range in ages and reading abilities, based on a Gap or Gapadol test. Once item analysis was completed on the passages, ten passages were selected to give two alternate versions, each containing five passages which were matched in interest and reading difficulty. The alternate forms of the assessments were formatted into two separate "user friendly" student booldets with pull-out answer sheets. These two versions were the trialled on over 200 subjects ranging widely in age, reading ability and educational placement. A Teachers Manual was also developed giving administration procedure, practice tasks and answers, answer key for the student booklets and a conversion table to conven the raw scores to reading levels