ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore how cultural relevance of text affects reading and how it can be considered in formal reading assessment programs. The author begins with a summary of the reading process and the role of background knowledge and schema in reading. Next a discussion of culturally relevant texts reviews how these texts help facilitate the transaction between readers and texts promoting increased reading comprehension and engagement. A cultural-relevance rubric used to define and determine cultural relevance along multiple dimensions is presented. Studies using the cultural-relevance rubric are reviewed. These studies consistently show that readers are more interested, engaged, and their reading is more proficient when reading texts they identify as being culturally relevant. The author suggests the cultural-relevance rubric should be used in large-scale reading assessments as a text-selection tool for target populations. In addition, test takers should complete a cultural-relevance rubric for each fiction reading assessment text they read. Cultural relevance and reading assessment scores should be considered together for a more complete assessment.
