When teaching the set texts in the Chinese language curriculum, teachers generally explain the meaning of the words and sentences in the text and then ask students to complete the questions in the exercise section of the textbook. This method of teaching is not very efficient and many students are unable to grasp the processes and skills involved in reading comprehension. Teachers do not have sufficient time or resources for diagnosing the difficulties students encounter in reading, nor for evaluating their comprehension ability.
This paper reports on a computer assisted learning software package for Chinese language reading comprehension which tries to break down the reading process into several tasks, each requiring a specific processing focus. The segmentation and punctuation exercise focuses attention on word and clause level information, the sentence clustering and keyword exercise concentrates on intermediate level processing at the phrase and sentence level, while the topic sentence selection and determination of main theme exercise channels attention to top level thematic understanding. By focusing the students' attention on a particular level of processing and giving them immediate feedback, it provides diagnostic information and training opportunities for students' componential skill in reading comprehension.

There is a classroom version of this software which will provide immediate information to the teacher in the form of an error analysis report for the whole class as well as for individual students. This will be extremely useful in helping the teacher plan his/her teaching and feedback during class time. The software also has a test/examination version for use in summative evaluation that does not provide feedback nor opportunities for second attempts. Using a combination of different exercise sequences and appropriate combination tests, this software can be used as a research tool into cognitive processes in reading comprehension.