Assessing adolescent reading comprehension in a french middle school: Performance and beliefs about knowledge

Abstract

In France, the growing percentage of students with reading problems calls for innovative teaching, particularly for students with serious learning difficulties. The present study was conducted on two classes with comparable reading levels: one standard sixth-grade class and one eighth-grade SEGPA class (those with learning difficulties). This study examined the effects of introducing a new teaching practice, didactique workstations, into the SEGPA class. The purpose of these workstations was to make the teaching content clearer and to promote formative assessment practices in order to improve adolescents' reading comprehension and their relationship to knowledge. The results showed that introducing this innovative teaching practice had an effect on the class group: the grade differential was reduced in a way that benefitted lower-level students. In addition to classroom effects, the workstations also changed students' relationship to knowledge. Thus, learning workstations offer great potential in working towards greater equity and inclusion.