Selecting at-risk first-grade readers for early intervention: Eliminating false positives and exploring the promise of a two-stage gated screening process.

The purposes of this study were (a) to identify measures that when added to a base 1st-grade screening battery help eliminate false positives and (b) to investigate gains in efficiency associated with a 2-stage gated screening procedure. We tested 355 children in the fall of 1st grade and assessed for reading difficulty at the end of 2nd grade. The base screening model included measures of phonemic awareness, rapid naming skill, oral vocabulary, and initial word identification fluency (WIF). Short-term WIF progress monitoring (intercept and slope), dynamic assessment, running records, and oral reading fluency were each considered as an additional screening measure in contrasting models. Results indicated that the addition of WIF progress monitoring and dynamic assessment, but not running records or oral reading fluency, significantly decreased false positives. The 2-stage gated screening process using phonemic decoding efficiency in the 1st stage significantly reduced the number of children requiring the full screening battery. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling oral reading fluency development in Latino students: A longitudinal study across second and third grade.

This study examines growth in oral reading fluency across 2nd and 3rd grade for Latino students grouped in 3 English proficiency levels: students receiving English as a second language (ESL) services (n = 2,182), students exited from ESL services (n = 965), and students never designated as needing services (n = 1,857). An important focus was to learn whether, within these 3 groups, proficiency levels and growth were reliably related to special education status. Using hierarchical linear modeling, the authors compared proficiency levels and growth in oral reading fluency in English between and within groups and then to state reading benchmarks. Findings indicate that oral reading fluency scores reliably distinguished between students with learning disabilities and typically developing students within each group (effect sizes ranging from 0.96 to 1.51). The growth trajectory included a significant quadratic trend (generally slowing over time). These findings support the effectiveness of using oral reading fluency in English to screen and monitor reading progress under Response to Intervention models, but also suggest caution in interpreting oral reading fluency data as part of the process in identifying students with learning disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Progress monitoring in oral reading fluency within the context of RTI.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 24(2) of School Psychology Quarterly (see record 2009-08555-001). The slopes reported in text were incorrect. The correct information is as follows: The average slope across the four measurement occasions for students who had a successful RTI on the familiar passage was 8.98 wc/min per week and on the novel passage was 2.06 wc/min per week. The average slope for students who had an unsuccessful RTI was 4.6 wc/min per week on the familiar passage and -1.5 wc/min per week on the novel passage. These values were correctly depicted in Figure 1.] Selecting appropriate measures to make decisions about child response to intervention is a key concern. The most commonly used assessment tool in response to intervention (RTI) models is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). However, an issue related to the use of CBM is the identification of measures that are of similar difficulty. To the degree that variation in performance across measurement occasions can be attributed to anything other than student learning, errors in judgment about student RTI may be made. The purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy and efficiency of using a single CBM passage for progress monitoring at key intervals during individual reading intervention compared to using several passages that had been individually equated. Results indicated that decisions made based on a standard passage did not differ from decisions made based on scores obtained on the individually equated passages but were much more cost efficient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Precursors of reading skill from infancy to first grade in Finnish: Continuity and change in a highly inflected language.

The course of language acquisition from infancy to public primary school was followed in a sample of 56 Finnish children to examine precursors to reading at first grade. Structural equation modeling of continuity suggested effects from growth in early vocabulary to mastery of inflectional forms at preschool age. The early language directly influenced early phonological awareness (PA) and only indirectly influenced later development in PA and word reading. The course of development in PA progressed from detecting larger multiphonemic units toward recognizing and producing phonemes in words, which, in turn, were positively associated with differences in producing new words by deleting and blending phonemes at kindergarten age. Including word reading before school entry levelled out the influence of the concurrent phonemic awareness factor on reading at first grade. Hence, in a highly inflected language with a transparent orthography, the pathway to reading consisted of skills learned in succession, the last phase being characterized by simultaneous development involving phonemic awareness and emerging reading skill. The finding led to the conclusion that, in addition to universal routes, language- and culture-specific routes to literacy must be acknowledged when searching for the precursors to reading at school age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive and linguistic foundations of early reading development: A Norwegian latent variable longitudinal study.

The authors present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 228 Norwegian children beginning some 12 months before formal reading instruction began. The relationships between a range of cognitive and linguistic skills (letter knowledge, phoneme manipulation, visual–verbal paired-associate learning, rapid automatized naming (RAN), short-term memory, and verbal and nonverbal ability) were investigated and related to later measures of word recognition in reading. Letter knowledge, phoneme manipulation, and RAN were independent longitudinal predictors of early reading (word recognition) skills in the regular Norwegian orthography. Early reading skills initially appeared well described as a unitary construct that then showed rapid differentiation into correlated subskills (word decoding, orthographic choice, text reading, and nonword reading) that showed very high levels of longitudinal stability. The results are related to current ideas about the cognitive foundations of early reading skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are first- and second-language factors related in predicting second-language reading comprehension? A study of Spanish-speaking children acquiring English as a second language from first to second grade.

First-language (L1) and 2nd-language (L2) oral language skills and L2 word reading were used as predictors to test the simple view of reading as a model of 2nd-language reading comprehension. The simple view of reading states that reading comprehension is related to decoding and oral language comprehension skills. One hundred thirty-one Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) were tested in 1st grade and many were followed into 2nd grade, including a full sample of 79. Structural equation modeling confirmed that a 5-factor measurement model had the best fit, suggesting that L1 and L2 phonological awareness should be viewed as separate but related constructs and that L1 and L2 oral language proficiency, measured by vocabulary and grammatical awareness, were separate constructs. The structural model indicated that for this group of ELs, who were educated in English, English oral language proficiency and word reading were the strongest predictors of English reading comprehension. Other models that deleted 1 of these crucial components resulted in significantly poorer fit. Therefore, the results support the validity of the simple view of reading as a model for the development of reading comprehension in young ELs. Implications for theory and practice, specifically assessment of ELs, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Secondary smoking prevention in a university setting: A randomized comparison of an experiential, theory-based intervention and a standard didactic intervention for increasing cessation motivation.

Objective: College may represent an untapped opportunity to reach the growing number of student smokers who are at risk of progressing toward regular smoking. The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of a theory-based experiential intervention for increasing motivation to quit smoking and reducing smoking behavior. Design: This study used a 3-arm, randomized design to examine the efficacy of an experiential secondary prevention intervention. The control groups included a traditional didactic smoking intervention and an experiential intervention on nutrition. Main Outcome Measures: The 2 primary dependent variables were change in self-reported intention to quit smoking, measured pre- and postintervention, and change in smoking behavior over the month following the intervention. Results: As hypothesized, the experiential smoking intervention was more effective than either control group in increasing immediate motivation to quit, but the effect was found only among female participants. At 1-month follow-up, both smoking interventions produced higher rates of smoking cessation and reduction than did the nutrition control condition. Conclusion: Findings support the potential efficacy of an intensive experiential intervention for female smokers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)