Sample Tasks/ Scoring Guides - Reading

For the OSSLT, reading is defined as the process through which the reader makes meaning of a variety of written texts as reflected in the expectations in The Ontario Curriculum across all subjects up to the end of Grade 9. The OSSLT’s informational, narrative and graphic reading selections focus on three reading skills:

• understanding explicitly (directly) stated ideas and information;

• understanding implicitly (indirectly) stated ideas and information and

• connecting the information and ideas in a reading selection with your knowledge and personal experience.

• information paragraph: presents ideas and information on a topic

• news report: presents information in the form of a news story

• dialogue: presents a conversation between two or more people

• real-life narrative: presents an account of a significant time in an individual’s life

• graphic text: presents ideas and information with the help of graphic features, such as diagrams, photographs, drawings, sketches, patterns, timetables, maps, charts or tables

• Multiple-choice

Each reading text is followed by a number of multiple-choice questions. Students select the best or most correct answer from a list of four options.

• Written answers

The information paragraph, news report and dialogue are followed by one or two open-response questions. Students construct a response based on the reading selection. The length of student responses should be approximately six lines.