Relationship between second grade oral reading fluency and third grade reading

Oral reading fluency is a critical feature and outcome of early literacy instruction and it has amassed great attention as a powerful predictor of success at all levels of schooling. We examined relationships between second grade oral reading fluency scores and third grade end-of-grade reading achievement scores for students (N = 9562) in a large school district in the United States. Stakeholder interviews were also conducted. In our model, oral reading fluency and reading comprehension scores were moderately correlated; oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of subsequent achievement, followed by ethnicity; growth on oral reading fluency was not strongly associated with end-of-grade performance; and greater than 90% of students classified as ‘at risk’ on benchmark assessments performed poorly on third grade assessments. Stakeholders believed that oral reading fluency testing was not necessary above selected levels of proficiency. We discuss implications of our findings for future research and practice.     

Growth in early reading skills from kindergarten to third grade

We examined models of individual change and correlates of change in the growth of reading skills in a sample of 40 children from kindergarten through third grade. A broad range of correlates was examined and included family literacy, oral language, emergent reading, intelligence, spelling, and demographic variables. Individual growth curve analysis was used to model change in Letter Word Identification (LWID), Word Attack (WA), and Passage Comprehension (PC) subtests of the Woodcock–Johnson Psychoeducational Battery – Revised. Third grade LWID was predicted uniquely by family literacy, phonological awareness, and emergent reading skills. Growth in LWID was predicted uniquely by emergent reading skills. Phonological awareness, spelling, and emergent reading were unique predictors of third grade WA, whereas family literacy and emergent reading skills uniquely predicted third grade PC. The general oral language factor defined by semantic and syntactic variables did not contribute significant unique variance in any of the models. Thus, the pattern of results extends the model of emergent-to-conventional literacy proposed by Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998) to third grade and suggests that early contextual understandings necessary for competent reading (family literacy and emergent reading) become more influential as reading skills develop.     

Tiers of intervention in kindergarten through third grade

This study measured the effects of increasing levels of intervention in reading for a cohort of children in Grades K through 3 to determine whether the severity of reading disability (RD) could be significantly reduced in the catchment schools. Tier 1 consisted of professional development for teachers of reading. The focus of this study is on additional instruction that was provided as early as kindergarten for children whose achievement fell below average. Tier 2 intervention consisted of small-group reading instruction 3 times per week, and Tier 3 of daily instruction delivered individually or in groups of two. A comparison of the reading achievement of third-grade children who were at risk in kindergarten showed moderate to large differences favoring children in the tiered interventions in decoding, word identification, fluency, and reading comprehension.     

Metacognitive skills in Belgian third grade children (age 8 to 9) with and without mathematical learning disabilities

This paper presents a study on mathematical problem solving in third-grade pupils. The relationship between mathematics, metacognition and intelligence was investigated in children with (n = 191) and without mathematical learning disabilities (n = 268). A significant relationship was found between prediction, evaluation, intelligence, procedural and mathematical fact retrieval skills in children without mathematical learning disabilities. In the children with mathematical learning disabilities a relationship was found between metacognitive and procedural skills. No such relationship was found between intelligence and metacognition or between metacognition and mathematical fact retrieval skills. In addition it was investigated if children with mathematical learning disabilities had less adequate metacognitive skills than peers without learning problems. At group level significant differences were found between both groups. However on analyzing these results further, it was found that four out of five children with combined mathematical learning disabilities, half of the children with procedural disabilities and only 5% of the children with a retrieval deficiency had low metacognitive skills. Furthermore, metacognitive problems were found in one out of five children without learning disabilities. Moreover, a majority of the children with mathematical learning disabilities and inadequate metacognitive skills had problems with prediction and evaluation skills. Most third graders with low metacognitive skills only appeared to have problems predicting the level of difficulty of tasks. Inaccurate evaluations were found on a more regular basis in children with mathematical learning disabilities and inadequate metacognitive skills as opposed to the sample of children with inadequate metacognitive skills but without learning difficulties, where their occurrence was rather a one off. The implications of this study for diagnosis and treatment will be discussed later in this paper.     

Metalinguistic contributions to reading and spelling in second and third grade students

Minimal research has been conducted on the simultaneous influence of multiple metalinguistic, linguistic, and processing skills that may impact literacy development in children who are in the process of learning to read and write. In this study, we assessed the phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, receptive vocabulary, and rapid naming abilities of second and third grade students (N?=?56) and determined how these abilities predicted the children??s reading and spelling skills. Regression analyses revealed that morphological awareness was the sole unique contributor to spelling and, together with orthographic awareness, uniquely contributed to word recognition. Morphological awareness also was significantly related to reading comprehension. The results add to a growing literature base providing evidence that early literacy development is influenced by morphological awareness, an ability that has received considerably less educational attention. Additionally, the findings point to the importance of tapping into multiple sources of metalinguistic knowledge when providing instruction in reading and spelling.     

Cognitive processes and math performance: a study with children at third grade of basic education

The present study aims to examine the relationship between cognitive factors and mathematical achievement in primary education. Participants were 103 Portuguese third grade students, aged 8 and 9. All participants completed a battery for working memory (WMTB-C), a test of general intelligence (Raven's Progressive Color Matrices), a selective attention test (d2), and mathematical exercises (arithmetic story problems and measurement skills). Data suggested significant correlations between math performance, executive, visuospatial sketchpad and g factor. Our findings suggest the importance of the cognitive factors in two mathematical domains considered. In consonance with the research in this area, we conclude that working memory (WM) assumes an important role in different math curricular achievements.     

The early childhood aggression curve: development of physical aggression in 10- to 50-month-old children

This study examines the prevalence, stability, and development of physical aggression, as reported by mothers and fathers, in a sample of children initially recruited at 12, 24, and 36 months (N=2,253) and in a subsample followed up 1 year later (n=271) in a cross-sequential design. Physical aggression occurred in 12-month-olds, but significantly more often in 24- and 36-month-olds. The rates of physically aggressive behaviors increased in the 2nd year of life, and declined from the 3rd birthday onward. Stabilities were moderate for 12-month-olds and high for 24- and 36-month-olds. At the ages of 24 and 36 months, boys were more aggressive than girls. The results confirm and extend R.E. Tremblay's (2004) hypothesis about the early development of physical aggression.     

Using educational placement in third grade to select and validate a preschool screening measure

The early detection of children with mild learning problems remains a problem. New screening tests are being developed that will be more effective in identifying children who fall into this “difficult to identify” group. This study examined the predictive validity of one potential screening test. The scores of 268 children on each task of a nine‐task preschool cognitive battery were evaluated in terms of the accuracy with which they predicted the classification of those same children into regular education (n = 254) or special education (n = 14) 4 years later when the children were in third grade. A classification accuracy level of 79% was achieved for the exceptional children, and a classification level of 70% for the normally achieving children. Racial/ethnic status, testing language, and socioeconomic status all impacted the children's screening performance. Lower screening scores and a greater proportion of the sample with scores below the cut were associated with minority status, not being tested in English, and lower socioeconomic status. Preschool testing in Spanish or both English and Spanish was associated with poorer achievement 4 years later. Many of the children not in special education, but with a screening score below 13, had serious academic problems in third grade that were reflected in their low percentile scores on one or more subtests of the Stanford Achievement Test. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 565–582, 2003.     

A sociocultural perspective on mediated activity in third grade science

This ethnographic study of a third grade classroom examined elementary school science learning as a sociocultural accomplishment. The research focused on how a teacher helped his students acquire psychological tools for learning to think and engage in scientific practices as locally defined. Analyses of classroom discourse examined both how the teacher used mediational strategies to frame disciplinary knowledge in science as well as how students internalized and appropriated ways of knowing in science. The study documented and analyzed how students came to appropriate scientific knowledge as their own in an ongoing manner tied to their identities as student scientists. Implications for sociocultural theory in science education research are discussed. John Reveles is an assistant professor in the Elementary Education Department at California State University, Northridge. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2005. Before pursuing his Ph.D., he worked as a bilingual elementary school teacher for 3 years. His research focuses on the development of scientific literacy in elementary school settings; sociocultural influences on students' academic identity; equity of access issues in science education; qualitative and quantitative research methods. Within the Michael D. Eisner College of Education, he teaches elementary science curriculum methods courses, graduate science education seminars, and graduate research courses. Gregory Kelly is a professor of science education at Penn State University. He is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and physics teacher. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1994. His research focuses on classroom discourse, epistemology, and science learning. This work has been supported by grants from Spencer Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the National Academy of Education. He teaches courses concerning the uses of history, philosophy, sociology of science in science teaching and teaching and learning science in secondary schools. He is editor of the journal Science Education. Richard Durán is a Professor in the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara. His research and publications have been in the areas of literacy and assessment of English Language Learners and Latino students. He has also conducted research on after school computer clubs, technology and learning as part of the international UC Links Network. With support from the Kellogg Foundation, he is implementing and investigating community and family-centered intervention programs serving the educational progress of Latino students in the middle and high school grades.     

Clusters of second and third grade dysfluent urban readers

This study examined the heterogeneity within a sample of 140 urban second and third graders identified as at-risk for reading failure due to inefficient word and/or nonword reading. Cluster analyses were conducted using standardized factor scores from a four-factor structural equation model characterizing reading performance in this sample. These standardized factor scores represented performance on four distinct factors: efficiency of word-level skills, text level skills, decoding, and vocabulary. Results identified four clusters of children who show distinctive patterns of performance on the four factors of reading. These understudied groups show different compositions along demographic categories and reading disability categories. Additionally, they have unique instructional needs that call for differentiated instruction in the domains of phonological decoding, fluency, text reading, and vocabulary.     

Teacher characteristics and pupil outcomes in secondary science classrooms

Conclusion The present research employed data collected in two separate studies related to ASEP to investigate relationships of changes in seven pupils learning outcomes with four teacher characteristics and four instruction-teacher interactions. A significant relationship (p<.05) emerged between changes in a learning outcome and a teacher characteristic in the following three cases: changes in critical thinking in science were more favourable in classes with less pupil-centredness teachers, and changes in attitude to science were more favourable in classes with female teachers and those with more pupil-centredness teachers. A significant relationship also emerged between changes in a learning outcome and the interaction of the instructional variable (ASEP/control) with a teacher characteristic in four cases, and these were interpreted in the paper. In addition to the specific findings outlined above, two more general tentative conclusions can be advanced. First, the use of common samples in separate studies appears useful for allowing the investigation of worthwhile questions which go beyond the bounds of the individual studies. Second, in view of the number of interesting relationships found between changes in learning outcomes and teacher and instruction-teacher interaction variables, it could be useful to replicate the present study.     

Predictors of developmentally appropriate classroom practices in kindergarten through third grade

This study was designed to (a) test the psychometric properties of a new observation measure of developmentally appropriate classroom practices in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms, and (b) determine how well classroom and teacher characteristics predict developmentally appropriate classroom practices. Teacher-reported and observational data from 69 classrooms provided support for construct validity, internal consistency, and interrater agreement of the Assessment of Practices in Early Elementary Classrooms (APEEC) measure. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that classroom characteristics (grade, class size, number of children with disabilities), teacher characteristics (education level, years of experience) and teacher beliefs (developmentally appropriate beliefs and developmentally inappropriate beliefs) accounted for 42% of the variance in observed classroom practices. With all variables in the model, teacher education, grade, and beliefs in developmentally appropriate and inappropriate practice accounted for most of the variance in observed classroom practices.     

Sex and aggression: the influence of gender label on the perception of aggression in children

To investigate the influence of gender label on adults' perceptions of aggression in children, a videotape of 2 preschool children playing roughly in the snow was shown to 175 college students (139 females, 36 males) who were asked to judge the degree of aggression displayed by 1 of the children (the target child). In the videotape, the children's snowsuits disguised their actual gender, and 4 experimental conditions were created by varying the gender label of both the target and the other (nonrated) child. Hence, the 4 conditions consisted of all possible combinations of gender; boy-boy, boy-girl, girl-boy, and girl-girl. All subjects viewed the same film; only the gender labels used to describe the children varied. Subjects' aggression ratings of the target child varied significantly as a function of the gender label attributed to both the target and the nonrated child. Specifically, the boy-boy condition was rated as significantly less aggressive than the other 3 conditions, which did not differ in level of perceived aggression. This effect was particularly strong among subjects with more experience with children. The results have interesting implications for understanding the process of social category perception.     

Relationship of socioeconomic status and ethnicity to primary grade children's self-concept

This study provides evidence regarding the controversy about the relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnicity to self-concept. Subjects were 345 first-, second-, and third-grade children of low SES (180 were black) attending inner city schools in a large metropolitan area. The Purdue Self Concept Scale was the measure of self-concept. There was a decline in self-concept with grade level (p < .01), and blacks scored higher than whites (p < .01). An analysis of black second-grade children's scores indicated that the race difference was due to the high scores of those with welfare status. Low expectations resulting from SES and ethnic segregation, effects of the black pride movement, and defensiveness are considered as possible explantions.