European Language Portfolio

Reading Skills Self-Assessment Grid

This Self-Assessment Tool is based on one of several components of the European Language Portfolio developed under the auspices of the European Council. The European Language Portfolio is designed to provide continuity and comparability throughout Europe in documenting and assessing language skills.

Which of the following descriptions most closely matches your skill level when you read English? Choose one, then click on the icon to go to the appropriate assessment sheet. If you feel your skills levels are somewhere between two or more descriptions, you may complete more than one sheet.

• I can understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues.



• I can read very short, simple texts. I can find specific, predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus and timetables, and I can understand short, simple personal letters.
  
  
• I can understand texts that consist mainly of high-frequency everyday or job-related language. I can understand the description of events, feelings and wishes in personal letters.



• I can read articles and reports concerned with contemporary problems in which the writers adopt particular stances or viewpoints. I can understand contemporary literary prose.



• I can understand long and complex factual and literary texts, appreciating distinctions of style. I can understand specialised articles and longer technical instructions, even when they do not relate to my field.



• I can read with ease virtually all forms of the written language, including abstract, structurally or linguistically complex texts such as manuals, specialised articles and literary works.

This page is maintained by Janet Sutherland
Last updated: 10 September 2005