Exploration de la relation entre l’évaluation à l’aide d’examens à la fin du primaire et l’apprentissage par la lecture d’élèves en difficulté d’apprentissage

Nowadays, it is not enough to decode to be considered as taught to read and write (alphabetized), it is also necessary to be capable of understanding various types of texts and of using with efficiency the information which they present (MELS, 2006). The redoubling and the educational underachievement in the primary school being mostly attributable to the difficulties in reading and in writing and these weaknesses echoing on the success of the pupils in all subjects (Stetson and William, 1992), the importance to present to the pupils of the situations of learning and evaluation which will support them in the learning by the reading is without ambiguity. Especially that Horton and Lovitt (1994) mentions that the academic failures would strictly be connected to the difficulties which these pupils feel when they learn by reading. This study joined within the framework of a research which was led in 2003-2004 by Chouinard, Bowen, Cartier, Desbiens, Laurier, Plante ( 2005 ) and whose title is: « The effect of various evaluative approaches on the commitment and the school perseverance in the context of the passage of the primary sector in the secondary sector» (Chouinard and coll., 2005). The present study was realized from the collection of datum of this research. The objective of research for this study was to investigate the link between teacher’s evaluative practices (tests) of the end of the primary school and the learning by reading of underachieving students. The three main concepts of the research question are the learning difficulties, learning by reading and evaluation practices. An analysis of the characteristics listed 22 research has found that very little research dealt with the link between evaluation practices and the learning process of elementary students and even fewer involve students with learning difficulties. To meet the objective of this study, an exploratory type of research in a quantitative approach was chosen. Descriptive analyses (mean and standard deviation) followed by a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with two levels (2x2) were performed for the iv evaluation practice. A hundred and six teachers and 1864 students agreed to meet two self-reported questionnaires: Le questionnaire sur les pratiques évaluatives (Chouinard and coll., 2005) was used with teachers. Le questionnaire sur l'apprentissage par la lecture: Lire pour apprendre from Cartier and Butler (2004 version) was used with students. The results of this study indicate a significant effect of interaction bet ween thes tests (strong or low) and the type of students (learning disabilities students and regular students). The students with learning disabilities interpet more the requirements of the activity than the regular students when they are in the same context. We also notice that the students with learning disabilities report to turn more to the cognitives strategies than the regular students.

Keyphrases: pratiques évaluatives, apprentissage par la lecture, lecture, assessment, learning disabilities, primary school, learning by reading, evaluation, testing methods