TY - JOUR

T1 - Clozing in on reading comprehension

T2 - A deep cloze test of global inference making

AU - Jensen, Katrine Lyskov

AU - Elbro, Carsten

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Traditional cloze tests (such as the CBM-maze) may be poor measures of comprehension processes beyond the single sentence level. This paper presents an alternative, a deep cloze test with gaps that are strategically chosen to assess comprehension beyond the sentence level. To fill each gap, the reader has to draw global cohesion inferences during reading. A study with 83 adult students found support for the validity of the deep cloze test. It contributed unique variance to global reading comprehension as measured with a conventional test even after controlling for sentence-level cloze, word decoding, and vocabulary knowledge. The deep cloze also explained all of the shared variance between reading comprehension and a topic identification task designed to require global comprehension. Future studies may explore how the deep cloze format can be used to tap other component processes of reading comprehension.

AB - Traditional cloze tests (such as the CBM-maze) may be poor measures of comprehension processes beyond the single sentence level. This paper presents an alternative, a deep cloze test with gaps that are strategically chosen to assess comprehension beyond the sentence level. To fill each gap, the reader has to draw global cohesion inferences during reading. A study with 83 adult students found support for the validity of the deep cloze test. It contributed unique variance to global reading comprehension as measured with a conventional test even after controlling for sentence-level cloze, word decoding, and vocabulary knowledge. The deep cloze also explained all of the shared variance between reading comprehension and a topic identification task designed to require global comprehension. Future studies may explore how the deep cloze format can be used to tap other component processes of reading comprehension.

U2 - 10.1007/s11145-021-10230-w

DO - 10.1007/s11145-021-10230-w

M3 - Journal article

VL - 35

SP - 1221

EP - 1237

JO - Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal

JF - Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal

IS - 5

ER -