Recent official policy and concepts of reading comprehension and inference: the case of England's primary curriculum |
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| Authors: | Jazz C Williams |
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| Institution: | , Salford, M50 3XF United Kingdom |
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| Abstract: | This article engages with recent policy on reading comprehension. It argues that the construct of inference has been treated as a single entity despite research and literature to the contrary, and this is perpetuated in the National Curriculum for 2014. It explores the limitations of conceptualising inference as a unitary construct and demonstrates that official policy has confused progression in inference with the process of a reader building a mental representation of a text. It argues that criterion‐referenced statements for progression in inference are flawed. The article proposes a means of conceptualising inference so it can be operationalised for the purpose of teaching and learning in the classroom. This is exemplified and applied to an example of a standardised test. |
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| Keywords: | comprehension inference reading primary policy analysis literacy policy curriculum assessment |
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