Abstract:
This doctoral research, which has been conducted right after the reform of French language teaching in the Algerian primary schools, attempts to give an account of the current way reading comprehension is taught in French as a subject matter in the Fifth grade. Its main objective is to find out the prominent characteristics and pitfalls of reading instruction, which could be subject to pedagogical alignment. These characteristics are examined on the basis of various fields of study: Text -Analysis Psycholinguistic, Psychology of Learning, Teaching Reading in the Mother Tongue and in a Foreign Language, and Educational Sciences), in
addition to a pedagogical device that seems to integrate the interdependency of both the process of learning and teaching and the assessment of reading comprehension. The analysis of this interdependency aims at identifying the factors, which are at the heart of the process of teaching, and assessing reading comprehension along with its theoretical insights; it also aims to determine the degree of defect, discrepancy or harmony between the processes of teaching and learning and assessing reading comprehension.
To clear up the nature of the relationship between these processes, an eclectic research approach has been adopted: Descriptive and Comprehensive, Interpretative, and Systemic so as to investigate teaching practices in relation to pupils ‘learning. The interrelation between the cited processes has brought about a particular view of the curriculum, which does not only prescribe specified learning competencies but, from a practical perspective, considers the learners’ effective acquisition of the prescribed competencies. The observation of the teaching and learning process has confirmed the hypothesis that Decoding Reading Competency is a necessary and preliminary phase to reading comprehension in prescriptive teaching practices, and to a less degree in more effective teaching practices in favored socio-economic classes. As for the hypothesis backing a rather fragmentary than interactive activation of comprehension competencies by means of the evaluation of tests items, it proves to be valid for test models suggested by the prescribed practices and for class tests. However, it is not in accordance with evaluation principles, the assessed aspects of competence and the recommended tests. As for the hypothesis stating gaps between the prescribed and the actual curriculum, it is confirmed by different levels of the process of teaching and assessing reading comprehension. Based on
these research findings, pedagogical alignments and teaching procedures are recommended to support both the design of reading curricula and teaching practices.
