Vincent, D., Green, L., Francis, J. and Powney, J.

1983: A review of
reading tests. Windsor: NFER-NELSON. 11 1 pp. ISBN 0-7005-1000-1.
Vincent, D. 1985: Reading tests in the classroom: an introduction.
Windsor: NFER-NELSON. 136 pp. ISBN 0-7005-0563-6.
A review of reading tests (henceforth, Review) is a guide t o com-
mercially published tests available in the UK. Reading tests in the
classroom (henceforth Reading tests) is intended as a primer on testing
in reading. The two books can be treated as complementary, with
Reading tests supplying instructions on how to interpret information
in the Review, e.g. on standardized scores, reading ages, etc., and the
Review acting t o exemplify the description in Reading tests. Both
books, can, however, be used independently.
The books are both intended for L1 teachers, particularly, it seems,
primary teachers. For someone like myself, working in EFL, to read
them is an experience similar to that of a member of one tribe viewing
the customs and rituals of a different, though related tribe. There are
obvious similarities t o spot: 'Others may feel that by breaking language
teaching into constituent parts STARS ceases t o be about language
at all . . . Above all, the scheme loses sight of language as an essentially
communicative activity' (Review, p. 84). Or 'However, there are dangers
in teacher passivity (with regard to test construction) . . . school-based
innovations in reading curriculum would continually run ahead of test
development. Existing tests would simply continue to fail to match
the teaching that had taken place' (Reading tests, p. 125). Yes, we've
been through that in EFL. On the other hand, there are marked dif-
ferences: both tribes have shamans, but they have different professional
training. However, there may yet be much deeper differences due to
history and cultural experiences, and while in the course of this review
I shall attempt to preserve anthropological objectivity, the reader must
watch out for signs of cultural insensitivity or blindness on my part.
234 Book review
The tests described in the review are mainly, though not exclu-
sively British, and the vast majority are aimed at primary schools.
This presumably reflects a belief that reading in secondary schools
does not need to be assessed. The Review is divided into four
sections: Attainment tests, Diagnostic tests, Checklists, and Spelling
tests. On the whole, I do not think checklists really count as tests,
though this is not a comment on their possible usefulness. In addi-
tion, I do not think spelling tests deserve inclusion. I am also a bit
dubious about the division between Attainment and Diagnostic
tests: the same test can often be used either for attainment or
diagnostic purposes. For example, Test 1 of the Daniels and Diack
Standard Reading Tests is said to be able to monitor reading pro-
gress (p. 85). Yet monitoring progress is classed by Vincent as one
of the main functions of Attainment tests. Nevertheless, given the
uses made of tests by teachers as reported by Vincent, it might
seem to be a reasonable distinction.
Where appropriate, information on tests is given according to the
following format: Group/Individual; Objective/Subjective; Standard-
izedlunstandardized; Age group; Score conversion scales; Timed/
Untimed; Equivalent forms; Consumable/Re-usable; Country of
origin. In addition, there is more extended discussion of purpose,
reported reliability and pragmatic validity, description of contents,
administration, etc. Comments made on tests are eminently sensible,
and refreshingly critical when this is appropriate. 'It will become
apparent', the introduction to Attainment tests remarks, 'that many
of the tests are regarded with, at best, lukewarm enthusiasm by their
reviewers'. It is, indeed, very apparent, and in most if not all cases
the test reviewers seem to me to be entirely right.
Many of the test types described in the Attainment test section
will be familiar to an EEL teacher. The diagnostic tests are more
unfamiliar, to me at least. There is a heavy stress on phonics, which I
have been prejudiced against ever since reading Fries's devastating
attack (Fries, 1962). In the Review, the editors refer at one point to
'phonetic and non-phonetic words'. Some of the description I just do
not follow, e.g. 'The child must repeat four-letter words broken
down into 2, 3 and 4 segments'. What is a segment, a letter or a
syllable? How many segments in the most famous four-letter word?
Many of the tests mention consonant and vowel blending. Consonant
blending presumably refers to sequences of consonants, e.g. b + 1.
But what is vowel blending? Does it refer to diphthongs or to sequ-
ences of vowels? I fairly quickly came to the conclusion that many
of these tests needed examination by someone with linguistic train-
ing (a shaman of the other tribe), a conclusion reinforced when I
read that one of the tasks in the Doren Diagnostic Reading Test asks
for 'larger words to be split into two smaller ones (e.g. fortget)'
(p.59).
On the whole, the reviewers seem to share the same set of opinions.
There do, however, seem to be some shades of difference. Discussing
the Marianne Frostig Developmental Test, they remark, 'Of what
value to reading is the ability to draw a line from left t o right between
two lines without touching the borders?' Quite. But why then are
they so respectful of the Aston Index, which includes the Good-
enough Drawa-Man Test, copying geometric designs, and copying
a pattern of connected loops; or moderately respectful of the Bangor
Dyslexia Test, which includes, believe it or not, six mental arithmetic
subtraction tasks, and the recitation of three multiplication tables?
The Aston Test, we are told, 'follows established theories of learning
and language difficulty' (like drawing men?). Just as the Barking
Reading Project, which includes handleye coordination tasks, nam-
ing and sounding lower case letters of the alphabet, the four-letter
word test (see above), etc., 'reflects much of the philosophy of
applied psychologists working in the field' (p. 55). I find the shamans
of the L1 tribe very alien.
These strictures apart, the Review gives an excellent account of
published tests.
In Reading tests, Vincent is very good on the meaning of statisti-
cal measures in testing - clear, informative, and suitably cautious.
The first six chapters cover the Teaching and testing of reading, Who
uses reading tests, Principles of standardized testing, Reliability and
validity, Reading test scales, and Uses and purposes of standardized
testing. This part of the book would seem to be an excellent comple-
ment to the Review. The rest of the book is less coherent (Vincent
points out that the later chapters cover a miscellaneous set of topics).
Chapter 7 , Diagnostic tests and techniques, describes, as the heading
in fact suggests, several diagnostic measures, e.g. checklists, miscue
analysis, which, while unquestionably measures of assessment, are
hardly tests in any conventional use of the term. Chapter 8, Criterion-
referenced testing, left me in the not unfamiliar position ofwonder-
ing what a criterion-referenced reading test would really look like.
Admittedly, Vincent points out that '. . . for British teachers, criter-
ion-referenced assessment remains more a concept than a reality'.
But he hardly advances the position very much.
Chapter 9, Beyond reading a b i p , deals in part with writing and
oral ability, neither of which seem to belong in a primer on the
testing of reading. Chapter 10, Language monitoring: the assessment
of performance unit, while containing some things of relevance, sits
236 Book review
rather oddly in a primer like this, and one cannot help thinking that
the relevant research and findings of the APU could have been re-
stricted t o other chapters. Perhaps my cultural prejudices are show-
ing. Finally, Chapter 11, Parents; micros; publishers, is a bit of a rag-
bag. Certainly, communicating test results to parents could be a
problem, but surely this could be handled as part of another chapter.
The section on micros includes, alas, a suggestion for applying cloze
procedure by microcomputer, while the section on publishers, apart
from underlining the fact that many published tests are awful, con-
tains banalities such as 'Publishers are also constrained by considera-
tion of cost'.
For someone working in EFL, the oddest aspect of Reading tests
is the low priority Vincent gives t o teacher-made tests. They don't
appear until Chapter 12, and even then Vincent comments that to
include such a topic in a fairly elementary primer might seem 'in-
congruous'. Contrast this with Heaton (1 9 75), where accounts of
Reliability and Validity do not appear till Chapter 9, and Interpret-
ing scores is the topic of Chapter 10, most of the preceding material
dealing with how t o write various kinds of test. Reading tests, on the
other hand, together with the Review, views the teacher as a passive
test consumer.
Part of the reason for this view may be the emphasis on standard-
ized tests, and this in turn may derive from the influence of the
shamans, the educational psychologists. In addition, in a more or less
unified state system of education, teachers, headmasters and edu-
cational authorities may feel more pressure to conform t o national
'norms' than is the case in the relatively unstructured EFL world.
Whatever the reasons, this presumed passivity is clearly dangerous,
as Vincent himself recognizes, pointing out that to leave tests t o test
producers and researchers is t o risk the danger of tests losing contact
with innovations introduced in the schools (see the quotation above).
Nevertheless, in spite of this warning, the general effect of both these
books may be to reinforce this tendency.
Taking the two books together, the most important lack for me is
a discussion of what reading is. Vincent states, '. . . perhaps the start-
ing point for any creative professional initiatives in reading assess-
ment would have to be the same thoughtful and rigorous analysis of
what one means by 'reading". But this is the last sentence in Reading
tests, and nowhere does he provide such an analysis. Nowhere in
either book do I get a clear picture of what children in primary
schools are expected to do with the printed word. As this is crucial,
since on this depends our judgement of the face, content and con-
struct validity of tests (Concurrent validity is not a problem, but we
Book review 237
are all surely aware that one dumb test can correlate highly with
another dumb test).
It is not as if Vincent and his colleagues do not recognize this. We
are told that tests must measure the 'normal act of reading', that a
test should match 'the user's conception of what reading is'. Tests
are criticized for not being related to 'the nature of reading'. In
addition, they have specific opinions as to what constitute valid
procedures. Sentence completion tasks and oral reading are criti-
cized in the Review at different points. However, these comments
are scattered throughout the books and frequently expressed in a
very hedged manner: 'Doubts must also be expressed . . .'. It would
have been helpful to have them gathered together in an overt, sus-
tained statement, even if this took a negative form: 'Reading is
not . . .'.
I should like t o end with a question which Vincent also poses:
'Why use standardized tests?' Vincent is dubious about the estab-
lishment of national norms, rightly, I think, and his favoured use is
for the monitoring of reading progress in a school or area. I think he
makes a good case for the advantages of using a suitable standard-
ized test, or tests, t o be administered at intervals, with the results
integrated into the teaching programme. But the problems, as is clear
from his account, are enormous. The test must be carefully chosen; if
more than one school is involved, clearly the same test must be used
in all of them. It must be administered correctly each time. The
results must be correctly interpreted, and combined intelligently
with other forms of assessment. Records must be kept accurately
over a period of time (micros, of course, could be used for this, as
Vincent suggests). Finally, the results of the test must be integrated
into what would have t o be a carefully structured curriculum.
Against this, we have Vincent and his colleagues' opinion that
many tests are awful, that often it is the worst tests that are used,
that testing is a backwater, that teachers teach reading better than
they test it. Moreover, teachers dislike tests (this is almost a refrain
in Reading tests, cf. pp. 18, 21, 48, 54.
In the face of this, it must seriously be asked whether the time,
money and effort required for Vincent's ideal solution would not be
better spent on teaching, not on using standardized tests. Those
tests used would be primarily teacher-made means of assessment
specifically constructed with particular classrooms and children in
mind. I think Heaton got it right.
College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth
238 Book review
Fries, C.C. 1962: Linguistics and reading. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston
Heaton, J. B. 1975: Writing English language tests. Harlow: Longman.