Colorado reading project: Longitudinal analyses

Extensive psychometric test data were obtained from two independent samples of reading-disabled and control children: 70 probands and 75 controls tested on two occasions over an average interval of 4.2 years, and 35 probands and 22 controls tested on three occasions over an average interval of 8.6 years. When composite measures of reading performance and symbol-processing speed were subjected to mixed-model multivariate analyses of variance, significant effects due to group (reading-disabled versus control) and time (i.e., test session) were obtained in both samples, and a significant group-by-time interaction was obtained for the sample tested on three occasions. In general, rates of change in reading performance are highly similar for reading-disabled and control children. However, with regard to symbol-processing speed, differences between the two groups increase as a function of age. Although no evidence was obtained for differential longitudinal stability of either composite measure in reading-disabled and control children, results of a multiple regression analysis suggest that reading deficits during middle childhood are highly predictive of later reading problems, even into early adulthood. This work was supported in part by a program project grant from the NICHD (HD-11681). The invaluable contributions of staff members of the many Colorado school districts and of the families who participated in the study are gratefully acknowledged.     

The relationship of phonological awareness, rapid naming, and verbal memory to severe reading and spelling disability.

The present study examined the relationship of phonological awareness, naming speed, and verbal memory to the scores obtained from five tests assessing word attack, word identification, reading comprehension, and spelling skills in 54 children with severe reading disabilities (48 boys and 6 girls; M age = 9 years, 7 months). Multiple regression analyses indicated that the best predictor of achievement across the five academic tests was the Verbal Comprehension factor from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. Age, socioeconomic status (SES), and externalizing behavior problems were also significant predictors of achievement, depending on the academic measure. After controlling for age, SES, behavior problems, and intelligence, the phonological awareness task added significantly to the prediction of word attack, spelling, and reading comprehension scores; rapid letter naming added significantly to the prediction of word identification and prose passage speed and accuracy scores; and a word-list memory task added significantly to the prediction of word recognition scores. These results suggest that several independent processes interact to determine the extent and severity of reading problems.     

Co-development among reading,math, science,and verbal working memory in the elementary stage

With a focus on within-person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010–2016, N = 859–9040, age 6.27–13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism was found between reading and science in all high-ability groups, and between reading/math and verbal working memory only in high-math students. These results remained the same when controlled for socioeconomic status and gender, and with sensitivity analyses. High-skill students (especially high-math students) may improve academic performance through accumulation of academic knowledge and mutualism between academic and cognition. Such mutualism may be driven by high-quality, intensive academic practice.     

Reading comprehension and information processing strategies

The present study investigated the relationship between the reading comprehension and information processing strategies of relatively fluent oral readers of Oriya orthography. The study was necessary, because Oriya orthography has some significant differences from English orthography and these differences could bear implications for the reading strategies and processes. Hence, it was envisaged that findings in the field of reading research using English orthography may not hold good for the readers of Oriya orthography. One hundred students of grade V were taken as subjects in the present study. Reading comprehension tasks simultaneous and successive information processing tasks and a nonverbal measure of intelligence were administered to all the subjects. Results show that good comprehenders were relatively more intelligent than the poor comprehenders. So far as their performance on simultaneous and successive information processing strategies were concerned good cornprehenders were better off on both types of coding tasks and these differences were found to be statistically significant even after the effect of intelligence was partialled out. However, no differential proficiency on either of these coding strategies was observed neither for the good nor for the poor comprehender group.     

The developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation: Measurement invariance,group variations,and implications for reading proficiency

The goal of the present study is to extend previous research on the developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation during early adolescence. Using large-scale panel data on secondary school students in Germany, we examined: (1) the longitudinal measurement invariance of intrinsic reading motivation, (2) the generalizability of the developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation across students’ gender, parental socioeconomic status (SES), and school tracks (academic vs. vocational), and (3) the associations between the developmental trajectory of intrinsic reading motivation and the developmental trajectory of reading proficiency. The scale we used to measure intrinsic reading motivation showed the (strict) measurement invariance across six occasions of measurement from Grades 5 to 10, indicating the high structural similarity (e.g., factor loadings, intercepts) of intrinsic reading motivation during early adolescence. Our analyses of latent growth curve models also confirm previous findings that students tend to experience a steady and significant linear decline in intrinsic reading motivation from Grades 5 to 10. This developmental decline also seems to be more pronounced in size (Δ =  − 0.772, p < .001) than previously reported. The developmental decline in intrinsic reading motivation was observed irrespective of students’ gender, parental SES, and school tracks. Male students expressed lower mean-levels of intrinsic reading motivation across the waves and exhibited a steeper motivational decline compared to female students. Despite mean-level differences across the waves, students showed similar degrees of a motivational decline across parental SES and school tracks. Finally, the larger decline in students’ intrinsic reading motivation was associated with the smaller growth of their reading proficiency from Grades 5 to 10. Our study provides further support for the high prevalence of the developmental decline in intrinsic reading motivation during early adolescence, its generalizability across students’ demographic characteristics, and its implications for the development of reading proficiency.     

Do preschool executive function skills explain the school readiness gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children?

We examine the extent to which executive functions (EFs), as opposed to other cognitive skills, account for socioeconomically based disparities in school readiness. Participants are 226 American children (aged 36–71 months) enrolled in either needs-based or private preschools. Children completed 6 tasks designed to measure EFs as well as assessments of general intelligence and speed of cognitive processing. Children were also assessed on math, reading, and vocabulary skills. EFs accounted for unique variance across all academic measures even when controlling for speed of processing and general intelligence and partially accounted for disparities in school readiness associated with type of preschool enrollment. When vocabulary was controlled in the model, EFs only mediated associations between type of preschool and math. Vocabulary skills accounted for associations between socioeconomic status and both math and reading achievement. General intelligence and speed of processing did not uniquely account for associations between disadvantage and school readiness.     

The predictive role of early childhood dysregulation profile on the parallel growth trajectories of reading and math performance across elementary and middle school

This study examined the heterogeneity in the co-developmental trajectories of reading and math performance (i.e., parallel changes in the initial scores and growth patterns) and identified the number, size and shape of the co-developmental trajectory across elementary and middle schools. In addition, this investigation focused on how an early childhood dysregulation profile (DP; indexed by a high co-occurrence of emotional, behavior, and attention problems) was associated with distinct co-developmental trajectories of reading and math performance. Specifically, we examined whether early childhood DP level can predict (a) membership assignment into each distinct co-development group and (b) variability in initial scores and changes in growth with each distinct co-development group. Participants were 784 academically at-risk students (47 % girls) predominantly from low socioeconomic status families who were recruited in first grade (Mean age = 6.57 years) and followed annually through the final year of middle school (ninth grade). Results revealed two distinct co-developmental trajectories of reading and math performance, including (a) a lower initial reading (higher increasing) and higher initial math (lower increasing) class (85.3 %) and (b) a lower initial math (higher increasing) and higher initial reading (lower increasing) class (14.7 %). Our results provided evidence for the compensatory pattern of co-developmental trajectories, indicating initial lower skills grow at a faster rate than the initial high. Further, early childhood DP was not associated with the membership assignment for these two distinct classes, which means that regardless of children’s early DP level, they have equal chances to be assigned to each of the classes. However, children with higher parent and teacher-reported DP in first grade demonstrated lower initial scores and a slower improvement rate in both classes after controlling for kindergarten literacy skills, gender, ethnicity, intelligence, socioeconomic status, and grade retention. Our study findings demonstrated (a) substantial heterogeneity in the co-developmental trajectories of reading and math performance across elementary and middle school ages; and (b) the importance of promoting self-regulation beginning in early childhood, especially for academically at-risk children in families facing economic challenges.     

Predicting reading progress in children receiving special help

The main aim of the study was to determine whether performance on reading-related cognitive processing tasks would help predict reading progress in children receiving special help. The 86 subjects were initially aged six to eight years and most were followed up after two years. When variance due to IQ and age was accounted for, an orthographic processing task, phonological awareness (phoneme deletion), and digit- naming speed were significant predictors of later reading skills. A strength in phonological awareness differentiated initial poor readers who later made excellent gains in reading from poor readers who did not improve. Children whose reading deteriorated had serious weaknesses on tasks of naming speed and confrontation naming. Their poor lexical retrieval skills had a more deleterious effect on later reading than on initial. Indications were that for children diagnosed as poor readers at age six or seven years, prognosis is better for boys, and for garden- variety poor readers, than for dyslexics. Caution was urged in applying the term dyslexic to children in the first two school grades because many of them will be slow starters who do not have a persistent reading problem.     

For Which Boys and Which Girls Are Reading Assessment Items Biased Against? Detection of Differential Item Functioning in Heterogeneous Gender Populations

In gender differential item functioning (DIF) research it is assumed that all members of a gender group have similar item response patterns and therefore generalizations from group level to subgroup and individual levels can be made accurately. However DIF items do not necessarily disadvantage every member of a gender group to the same degree, indicating existence of heterogeneity of response patterns within gender groups. In this article the impact of heterogeneity within gender groups on DIF investigations was investigated. Specifically, it was examined whether DIF results varied when comparing males versus females, gender × socioeconomic status subgroups and latent classes of gender. DIF analyses were conducted on reading achievement data from the Canadian sample of the Programme of International Student Assessment 2009. Results indicated considerable heterogeneity within males and females and DIF results were found to vary when heterogeneity was taken into account versus when it was not.     

A developmental approach to reading disability: accuracy and speed criteria of normal and deficient reading skill

The constructs of accuracy and speed were adopted as performance criteria against which to define 2 clinical samples of disabled readers. Accuracy-disabled subjects had failed to achieve reliable age-appropriate word recognition skills. Rate-disabled readers were age-appropriate in word recognition accuracy but deficient in reading speed. These disabled readers were compared to fluent normal children selected to be reading at the same level of accuracy as the rate-disabled subjects but at a significantly faster rate. All aspects of the accuracy-disabled subjects' reading systems proved deficient, and these children were less able to learn new sound-symbol associations in a task simulating initial reading acquisition. The rate-disabled subjects exhibited a basic deficit in word recognition speed, compromised accuracy when reading in context, and compromised spelling when competing visual patterns were available. A multidimensional oral language impairment was found to accompany the accuracy disability, while the rate disability appeared restricted to language in its visible form and the naming of visual representations. A visual naming speed impairment was associated with both profiles of deficient reading skill.     

Field Dependence-Field Independence in 5- to 10-Year-Old Children

Abstract

A final random sample of 160 Provo, Utah, elementary school children ages 5 to 10, was included in a balanced cell format to investigate the effects of school as reflective of socioeconomic level, age, sex, and intelligence on performance on the Children’s Embedded Figures Test (CEFT), a measure of Witkin’s field-dependence-independence hypothesis appropriate for use with young children. Results implied that (1) there may be differences on criterion performance according to relative social class; (2) age is the single best predictor of criterion performance, as significant differences proceeding from relative field-dependence to greater field-independence with increasing age were found; (3) there is a similar developmental pattern to increase in verbal intellectual power and increase in relative field-independence when all ages are considered together; (4) there were no significant similarities between field-dependence-independence and verbal intelligence within three of four specific ages investigated; (5) no sex differences in criterion performance were found.     

Examining an Extended Home Literacy Model: The Mediating Roles of Emergent Literacy Skills and Reading Fluency

We examined the developmental relationships between home literacy environment (parent teaching, shared book reading) and emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, rapid naming speed) in kindergarten, reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, and reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3 in a sample of Canadian children learning to read English (N = 214). Results from a latent variable model showed that parent teaching predicted letter knowledge and phonological awareness, and shared book reading predicted vocabulary and rapid naming speed after controlling for family socioeconomic status. Moreover, both parent teaching and shared book reading contributed indirectly to reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, which then mediated the effects of home literacy environment on reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3. The results suggest that the effects of home literacy environment on later reading development are distributed via more pathways than previously thought.     

Differential effects of stimulant medication on reading performance of boys with hyperactivity with and without conduct disorder

Controversy surrounding stimulant medication, particularly its effects on reading performance, continues to obscure the issue of the use of this drug in classroom situations. The present study emphasized careful differential diagnosis, double-blind and placebo approaches, and curriculum-based dependent measures to address these concerns. Methylphenidate was administered to two groups of boys, ages 8 through 11. The two groups included 27 subjects meeting criteria for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder but not conduct disorder, known as hyperactive disorder (HD), and 28 subjects meeting criteria for both diagnostic categories, known as hyperactive-aggressive (HA). Only four subjects in each group met a discrepancy criterion for learning disabilities (LD). Methylphenidate was administered to both groups at three levels of dosage, along with baseline and placebo conditions. Dependent measures involved both reading recognition and reading comprehension, equivalent across all conditions. No significant results were found for the group with HD in either reading recognition or comprehension, due largely to unusual placebo reactions. Results were generally in the direction predicted for the group with HA, but only significantly so in reading comprehension, and no dose effect was found on this variable. Implications for reading as a dependent measure of medication effects are discussed.     

Preschool prediction: Orthographic and phonological skills,and reading

Because of the research demonstrating the roles of phonological awareness, serial naming speed, and orthographic processing in reading, a test of each of these skills was added to a preschool screening battery. The main aim of the study was to determine whether these measures would contribute to the prediction of reading. The 118 subjects were first tested six months before kindergarten entry and were followed up 19 and 24 months later. Each additional screening test made a significant, independent contribution to the prediction of early first grade word reading/spelling, after the contributions of a parent rating of preschool reading ability (PRA), verbal IQ, socio-economic status (SES), and chronological age were accounted for. With letter naming and PRA, the additional tests were responsible for 62 percent of the variance. The orthographic test made the largest single contribution (32%) to the variance in word reading/spelling. Variables contributing significantly to the prediction of later first grade reading comprehension were (in order of proportion of the variance accounted for) letter naming, sentence memory, object naming speed, the orthographic test, and SES. The revised preschool screening battery correctly identified 91 percent of individual first grade good and poor readers. It was concluded that preschool measures of phonological awareness, serial naming speed, and orthographic processing make a strong contribution to prediction of first grade reading.     

The relationship between grit,self-control,and early grade reading: a trial measuring soft skills in rural Tanzania

Abstract

Soft skills such as grit, self-control, and self-confidence have been shown to predict outcomes in school and in life. As such, their valid and reliable measurement is of substantial interest in educational research and policy circles. However, the vast majority of this research originates in Western countries; relatively little is known regarding the measurement of soft skills in developing country contexts and whether similar types of instruments can provide evidence of these skills. This paper presents a novel means of assessing grit, self-control, and self-confidence in rural Tanzania: through the use of scenario-based self-report questionnaires. Survey instruments were administered in three regions in Tanzania to 961 Standard 2 pupils. We found that scenario-based items provided valid and, in most cases, reliable estimates of the three tested soft skills. When comparing self-reported soft skills and reading ability, we found that both grit and self-control were significant predictors of reading and mathematics performance. After controlling for sex, region, and age, grit was found to have a stronger association with reading performance than socioeconomic status.     

Measuring Socioeconomic Status at Individual and Collective Levels

This study investigated the multilevel dimensionality of socioeconomic status and its relationship to reading achievement in 23 countries. Different factor structures of SES were found at different levels’ observations and in different countries. The study showed that the cultural dimension strongly related to student reading performance, while the school general capital dimension explained a large part of the between-school reading achievement differences. Most interestingly, the factor relationship between SES and reading achievement at the school level varies greatly across countries. It was argued that these variations might be due to the differences in the centralized versus decentralized educational finance, tracking mechanism and some social characteristics in different countries.     

Adult developmental dyslexia in a shallow orthography: Are there subgroups?

The existence and stability of subgroups among adult dyslexic readers of a shallow orthography was explored by comparing three different cluster analyses based on previously suggested combinations of two variables. These were oral reading speed versus accuracy, word versus pseudoword reading speed, and phonological awareness versus rapid naming. The three analyses were conducted with the same group of dyslexic adults. Each analysis produced three subgroups, corresponding to ones previously suggested in the literature. However, the subgroups had only little overlap from one analysis to another. Each clustering produced somewhat different subgroup profiles in phonological processing, reading, intelligence, temporal acuity, and sensory short-term memory. However, the shared difficulties of the solutions in several language-related and sensory tasks suggest the conclusion that developmental dyslexia does not causally consist of subgroups, at least in shallow orthographies. Further, the shared sensory difficulties suggest that impaired temporal acuity and sensory short-term memory may reflect the severity of a primary disorder that dyslexic readers cannot compensate by strategies.     

A follow-up study of dyslexic boys

Over 500 men who attended the Gow School, an independent school for boys with developmental dyslexia, were given a follow-up questionnaire from 1 to 38 years after they left the school. More than half had graduated from college; business was the most frequently chosen major in college; most were employed in managerial or related business positions; and their adult reading habits and attitudes did not compare well with those of other men of similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Socioeconomic status and IQ were not predictive of adult outcome among these men in contrast to their effect in the general population. An important result was that severity of the reading problem upon entrance to Gow and the academic and remedial progress of the men while at the school were highly predictive of adult educational, occupational, and attitudinal status. This work was supported by funds from NIH grant HD00486, the Gow School, and the John F. Kennedy Institute.     

Subgrouping of readers based on performance measures: a latent profile analysis

By using latent profile analysis eight stable and interpretable subgroups of readers were identified. The basis for subgrouping was different performance measures with four aspects of reading in focus: reading of continuous texts, reading of document texts, word reading and reading speed. Participants were 9-year-old Swedish students included in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Reading Literacy Study in 1991 (n = 4,184) and in 2001 (n = 5,099). The eight subgroups were compared on different background variables, such as gender, language at home, and cultural and socioeconomic factors. It was concluded that latent profile analysis proved to be a feasible methodology. The even performance profiles of good and average readers imply that reading is a skill with a high degree of transfer and generality. Several subgroups of poor readers with more heterogeneous performance patterns could be identified. The three most stable subgroups proved to be comprised of high performers, poor comprehenders and dyslexic students.     

Reading comprehension skills of young adults with childhood diagnoses of dyslexia

This study explores the contribution of cognitive processes to comprehension skills in adults who suffered from childhood developmental dyslexia (CD). The performance of adults with CD (ages 17 to 23), chronological age-matched (CA) adults, and reading level-matched (RL) children was compared on measures of phonological processing, naming speed, working memory (WM), general knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension. The results showed that adults with CD scored lower on measures of phonological processing, naming speed, WM, general knowledge, and vocabulary when compared to CA readers but were comparable to RL children on the majority of process measures. Phonological processing, naming speed, vocabulary, general knowledge, and listening comprehension contributed independent variance to reading comprehension accuracy, whereas WM, intelligence, phonological processing, and listening comprehension contributed independent variance to comprehension fluency. Adults with CD scored lower than CA adults and higher than RL children on measures of lexical processing, WM, and listening comprehension when word recognition and intelligence were partialed from the analysis. In summary, constraints in phonological processing and naming speed mediate only some of the influence of high-order processes on reading comprehension. Furthermore, adults with CD experience difficulties in WM, listening comprehension, and vocabulary independently of their word recognition problems and intellectual ability.