Automated Comprehension Assessment in a Reading Tutor

Can vocabulary and comprehension assessments be generated automatically for a given text? We describe the automated method used to generate, administer, and score multiple-choice vocabulary and comprehension questions in the 2001-2002 version of Project LISTEN's Reading Tutor. To validate the method against the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, we analyzed 69,326 multiple-choice cloze items generated in the course of regular Reading Tutor use by 364 students in grades 1-9 at seven schools. Correlation between predicted and actual scores reached R=.85 for Word and Passage Comprehension.