Mapping reading profiles of basic readers to the cerf-aligned reading standards based on eye-movement behaviour observations

Abstract

Understanding the congruency between readers’ reading behaviours and target reading outcomes is imperative in improving pupils’ reading proficiency. However, research on this area from the Malaysian context is still scarce. This research, therefore, aims to develop the reading profiles of basic primary school readers based on eye-movement behaviour observations and map them to the reading standards in the new CEFR-aligned English language curriculum. In an attempt to develop comprehensive reading profiles of basic readers in Malaysia, this research approaches this issue with a new perspective through the E-Z reader model. Towards this end, eighty 12-year-old participants were identified as basic readers and divided systematically into two. Each group was then given a different post-reading task. A 3-phase mixed-methods evaluation design was employed in the research methodology. The first phase observed participants’ eye-movement behaviours when they read the narrative, expository, and infographic texts using an eye tracker Tobi Pro Glasses 100 Hz. Next, phase two identified arising themes in phase 1 for reading profiles development. Finally, phase three of this study evaluated the aligned reading standards by mapping them to the reading profiles developed earlier. The findings revealed a profile of nine characteristics that describe the basic readers: 1. basic readers’ late measure is significantly longer than the early measure, 2. basic readers do rereading at the micro-level, 3. basic readers show multidimensional relationships across sentence types, 4. basic readers skip information and text features, 5. basic readers make long fixation at short content and function words, 6. basic readers make desegmentation between sentences, 7. basic readers are influenced by pathological schemata, 8. basic readers gain benefits from spending longer time processing information, and 9. basic readers require exposure towards different reading tasks. Then, this study matched the keywords in the reading profiles with the keywords in the reading standards, where this study found three new elements that should be added to the reading standards. These elements include readers being able to navigate on all information in the text, reconfirm their understanding, and read for different purposes. Improve versions of CEFR-aligned reading standards are then suggested for future consideration.