According to international research, the reading skills of Dutch students have declined in the last few years. The Curriculum-Based Measurement maze test can be used to monitor the progress of...Show moreAccording to international research, the reading skills of Dutch students have declined in the last few years. The Curriculum-Based Measurement maze test can be used to monitor the progress of students’ reading performance. This can help teachers in adjusting instructional programs, which can lead to improvement in students’ reading skills. Although most of the previous research showed that maze test scores measure reading skills, one study showed that the scores measure decoding, not text level reading comprehension. The current study investigated whether the maze test also measures text level reading comprehension, through comparing the scores on maze tests with a standard and a scrambled format. The standard maze test was comprehensible on text level, but the scrambled maze test was not: the text was incoherent, because the sentences were placed in a random order. This study also investigated the relations among reading comprehension level, reading motivation level and maze test scores. Two standard and two scrambled maze tests and the Standards of Coherence questionnaire were completed by 140 fifth grade students. Their reading comprehension Cito-scores were also collected. Results showed that students scored higher on the standard than on the scrambled maze test. This suggests that the scores also reflect reading comprehension on text level, which supports the fact that maze tests measure reading skills. The main effects of reading comprehension level and reading motivation level on maze test scores were significant. Both factors seem to be related to reading performance. The interaction-effect of reading motivation level and reading comprehension level was not significant. The relation between reading motivation level and reading scores appears to be the same for weak, average and strong readers. More research is needed to find out if the maze test scores are sensitive for change when interventions are carried out to increase reading skills.Show less
