Creating an instrument for measuring second language reading comprehension
The Sentence Verification Technique (SVT) (Royer Hastings and Hook, 1979) has been used by teachers to assess the readability of texts intended for their students. After reading short texts, participants indicate whether or not isolated sentences presented to them correspond to what they just read. These sentences are modifications of sentences from the text (paraphrases, meaning changes), intact sentences, or added distracters. This paper reports on the creation of the first SVT test developed for measuring reading comprehension ability in English as a second language. Four English texts of general interest with 12 sentences each were submitted to two readability scales. Readers are guided through the various steps in the creation of this instrument, in light of previous research, followed by the testing of the instrument with more than 200 French-speaking university students learning English as a second language. For researchers, current standardized tests are not open access, involve costs, and take time to complete. Results from this experiment suggest that our instrument is a promising alternative to standardized tests for measuring reading comprehension ability in English as a second language.