sion. While the former is seen as a prerequisite skill for the latter, the reading comprehension tests assess the extent to which students understand written texts. This requires students to process information that is explicitly mentioned in the text. To understand what is written in the text, this information must be connected to the student’s own knowledge (e.g., meaning of words). Besides information processing, reading comprehension also requests knowledge activation and reflecting, although the latter is not assessed in the tests. Most primary schools focus on technical reading in first grade and provide materials on reading comprehension from second grade onwards. The various components of reading comprehension are addressed across all grades, although the type and number of texts used in the tests differ among grades. The tests distinguish formal and informal texts. In the tests, the texts that must be handled by the students relate to the texts that they get confronted with during the school year. As students advance through primary education, there is an increased focus on formal texts. Besides the types of texts, also the number of questions in the reading test changes throughout primary education. While firstgrade students are required to complete two tasks, both with 20 questions, sixth-grade students must complete three tasks with around 2425 questions in each task. All questions are asked in a multiple-choice setting. For math, Dutch primary schools provide students with fundamental arithmetic and measurement skills. More specifically, they focus on the use of mathematical language, arithmetic operations, and strategies to solve arithmetic and measurement problems. All these skills are assessed in the standardized tests in straightforward arithmetic questions and arithmetic problems within a context. Differently than for 117
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw