Measures and References: Verbal Reasoning

Return to Verbal Reasoning factor page.

Measures

Numerous measures exist to gain a full picture of a student's learning strengths and challenges. Following are examples of measures used to assess this Learner Factor. These measures should be administered and interpreted by experienced professionals.

Verbal Reasoning Assessment (Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001): Students listen to a story and are asked questions that require integrating information from the knowledge base to accurately make inferences

Inference Making Worksheets: Informal assessment activities

References

Best, J. R., Miller, P. H., & Naglieri, J. A. (2011). Relations between executive function and academic achievement from ages 5 to 17 in a large, representative national sample. Learning and Individual Differences, 21(4), 327-336.

Currie, N. K., & Cain, K. (2015). Children's inference generation: The role of vocabulary and working memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 137, 57-75.

Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. V. (1999). Inference making ability and its relation to comprehension failure in young children. Reading and Writing, 11(5-6), 489-503.

Cain, K., Oakhill, J., Barnes, M. A., & Bryant, P. E. (2001). Comprehension skill, inference-making ability, and their relation to knowledge. Memory & Cognition, 29(6), 850-859.

Cain, K., Oakhill, J., & Bryant, P. (2004). Children's reading comprehension ability: Concurrent prediction by working memory, verbal ability, and component skills. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(1), 31-42.

Crumpler, M., & McCarty, C. (2004). Diagnostic reading analysis. London, UK: Hodder Education.

Dunn, L. M., Dunn, D. M., Styles, B., and Sewell, J. (2009). The British Picture Vocabulary Scale III (3rd ed.). London: GL Assessment Limited.

Dunn, L.M., Dunn, L.M., & Whetton, C.W. (1997). The British Picture Vocabulary Scale (2nd ed.). Windsor, England: NFER-Nelson.

Edwards, L., Figueras, B., Mellanby, J., & Langdon, D. (2011). Verbal and spatial analogical reasoning in deaf and hearing children: the role of grammar and vocabulary. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 16(2), 189-197.

Elbro, C., & Buch-Iversen, I. (2013). Activation of background knowledge for inference making: Effects on reading comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17(6), 435-452.

Hirsch, E.D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge - of words and the world: Scientific insights into the fourth-grade slump and stagnant reading comprehension. American Educator, 27(1), 10-22, 28-29, 48.

Kendeou, P., & van den Broek, P. (2007). The effects of prior knowledge and text structure on comprehension processes during reading of scientific texts. Memory & Cognition, 35(7), 1567-1577.

Norbury, C. F. (2004). Factors supporting idiom comprehension in children with communication disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47(5), 1179-1193.

Pickering, S., & Gathercole, S. (2001). Working Memory Test Battery for Children. London: Psychological Corporation.

Semel, E.M., Wiig, E.H., & Secord, W. (2017). Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (5th ed.). London: The Psychological Corporation.