Elaboración de un instrumento para medir comprensión lectora en niños de octavo año básico

Abstract

The objective of the present paper is to account for an instrument which –taking as starting point the model of comprehension of van Dijk and Kinstch (1983) and Graesser (1997)– tries to explain how children from 13 to 14 years carry out the process of reading comprehension of expository texts. It is of special interest to us to observe the type of reasoning that the subjects apply in the different levels of mental representation of the text. In other words, the aim is to investigate the capacity of the subjects to read in an efferent way –that is to say with the objective of extracting information from the text– and at the same time to observe if a level of profound comprehension is reached (Graesser and Tipping, 1998). We consider that this measurement is fundamental since efferent reading is indispensable to acquire understanding and to relate and transfer it to other areas of knowledge. In this proposal reading is understanding and understanding is learning. The sample used for the pilot study of said instrument is composed of sixty boys and girls attending the eighth year in municipal and subsidized schools in two cities in Chile.