Ontario parents: Did you know that students are permitted to listen to the reading passages on the standardized EQAO Reading assessment? Read that again. Students can LISTEN to the text and then answer questions designed to assess their reading comprehension. So we need to ask an important question: Are we accurately measuring reading comprehension….or are we potentially inflating what the data tells us about students’ ability to READ? Reading comprehension requires students to decode the words AND understand the language. If the text is read aloud, the decoding demand can be bypassed. A student may demonstrate strong language comprehension while still struggling significantly with word reading. And that distinction matters. Because when families receive EQAO results indicating that their child has met the provincial standard in reading, do they know that their child may have been permitted to listen to the passage rather than independently read it? Parents deserve to understand what the assessment measures—and what it may not. 👇 Ontario parents/caregivers: Did you know students could listen to the reading passages on EQAO? Teachers: What do you think this means for how we interpret Ontario’s reading data? @eqao @ONeducation