PIRLS 2006 Encyclopedia

PIRLS 2006 Encyclopediamore precisely for each grade level. For this reason, the same competency may be focusedon in different ways at several grade levels. The seven specific competencies includethe following:Belgium, French System• Directing one’s reading according to the situation of the communication: Thiscompetency is organized into six subcompetencies, each directed towards thework that has been done in preparation for the reading activity (e.g., finding bookreferences, selecting a document according to one’s reading intention, anticipatinga document content by considering the internal and external indications,understanding the author’s intentions, adapting one’s strategy according to theproject, defining an appropriate reading speed).• Building meaning: This competency refers to the processes the readerimplements in order to comprehend the text and react to it appropriately. Thereare 11 subcompetencies that outline strategies needed to develop an “expert”reading approach.• Drawing the organization of a text: This competency focuses on the textstructure (e.g., narrative, descriptive) and the global organization of the text (e.g.,layout, sections, textual organizers). Nine subcompetencies are grouped underthis specific competency, which focus on defining the reading intention andselecting the strategies that are most appropriate to the type of text concerned.• Detecting the cohesion between sentences and groups of sentences in thewhole text: This competency is organized into four subcompetencies directedtowards the identification of the cohesion factors in the text (e.g., anaphora,textual organizers, pronouns, subject progression). Identifying the ideaarticulation, chronology, and pronoun rules are all necessary skills to increasereading fluidity and comprehension of the text and the relationships between itsdifferent components.• Taking the grammatical units into account: This competency is dividedinto two subcompetencies, one of them directed towards punctuation andgrammatical units (organization and syntactic structure), and the other towardsthe recognition of noun and verb grammatical signs (e.g., gender, number of thewords, verb tenses). These competencies are of major importance in the readingprocess because the reader must be able to detect the influence of the syntacticorganization and grammatical links in the text.• Processing the lexical units: This competency is made up of foursubcompetencies directed towards strategies needed to clarify the meaningof a word, such as suggesting hypotheses or using the context, the dictionary,synonyms and antonyms, and different parts of the word (i.e., root, prefix,and suffix).• Detecting interactions between verbal and nonverbal elements: Thiscompetency encourages the use of nonverbal elements to clarify one’s reading(i.e., illustration, scheme, typography, and key).46