S10 E6: Understanding assessment, with Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.

Dec 3, 2025

Melissa Farrall, Ph.D., an expert in literacy assessment and author, joins to shed light on the intricacies of comprehension assessment. She discusses how reading comprehension interlinks with language comprehension and why it's challenging to assess. Melissa emphasizes the significance of combining reading and listening assessments to grasp a learner's true potential. Furthermore, she highlights the role of background knowledge and vocabulary in meaning-making, urging a multifaceted approach to evaluating and supporting literacy.

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INSIGHT

Comprehension Is Thinking Guided By Print

Reading comprehension is thinking guided by print and draws on more than just language skills.
Melissa Farrall emphasizes verbal reasoning, spatial thinking, and working memory as core contributors.

ANECDOTE

From Slavic Linguistics To Reading Research

Melissa Farrall transitioned from Slavic linguistics to reading because phonology fascinated her.
Her work analyzing medieval Russian spelling errors seeded her interest in children's spelling and assessment.

ADVICE

Train Educators To Interpret Evaluations

Empower educators to understand assessment so they can question and interpret evaluation reports.
Melissa wrote her book to help teachers read evaluations and act on gut reactions with data-informed confidence.

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In this episode of Science of Reading: The Podcast, Susan Lambert is joined by Affiliated Scholar at the Stern Center for Language and Learning, Melissa Farrall, Ph.D., to discuss understanding assessment. Melissa explains why it's beneficial for every educator to understand the fundamentals of assessment, especially comprehension assessment. Together, Melissa and Susan discuss the relationship between reading comprehension and language comprehension, why reading comprehension can be challenging to assess, and how, in a perfect world, educators would be trained both in the Science of Reading and assessment.

Show notes:

Submit your questions on comprehension!
Access free, high-quality resources at our brand new, companion professional learning page.
Connect with Melissa Farrall on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Chall's Stages of Reading Development.
Read Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy, and Cognition
Read The Academic Achievement Challenge: What Really Works in the Classroom
Listen to Season 2 of Amplify's Beyond My Years podcast.
Join our community Facebook group.
Connect with Susan Lambert.

Quotes:

"My view of reading comprehension is that it is thinking guided by print." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
"If we supplement our evaluation with measures of listening comprehension, we can then get a sense of an individual's ability to make meaning." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.
"In a perfect world, we would have not just evaluators, but educators who are trained both in the Science of Reading and in assessment so that we can all sit at the same table and participate." —Melissa Farrall, Ph.D.

Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction: Exploring comprehension assessment, with Melissa Farrall
07:00 The legacy of Jean Chall's research on the developmental stages of reading
10:00 "Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy, and Cognition"
17:00 Comprehension is thinking guided by print
21:00 Different ways of assessing reading comprehension
27:00 Kintsch's construction-integration model
30:00 Word recognition
33:00 Reading comprehension is not easily quantified
38:00 How background knowledge affect the meaning-making process
41:00 The two modalities of language comprehension
45:00 How today's educators might think differently about comprehension instruction
48:00 Closing thoughts

*Timestamps are approximate, rounded to nearest minute