Research Projects Funded by IDA 

Summary: 

The Relationship between Growth Rates in Precursor Literacy Skills and Word Recognition and Spelling Growth Rates in Young Children with Reading Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the usefulness of combining curriculum-based measurement and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) procedures to identify the characteristics of first grade children that predict growth rates in the acquisition of decoding skills (as assessed through measures of isolated word and non-word reading). This study examined the relative importance of both static (initial levels of performance) and dynamic (rate of growth) measures of cognitive processing abilities and precursor literacy skills as predictors of decoding growth in a sample of 75 first grade children. It was found that a set of parallel word and non-word reading tasks constructed using curriculum-base measurement techniques, administered on a monthly basis, were capable of demonstrating change, as well as individual differences in change, in decoding skills over the course of the academic year. Furthermore, results indicate that growth in various cognitive processing abilities (i.e., phonemic awareness, rapid naming speed, and orthographic awareness) and precursor literacy skills (i.e., letter name, letter sound, and more advanced graphophonemic knowledge) could likewise be measured and adequately modeled over such short time intervals. In this sample of children, rate of growth in word and non-word reading were predicted by a combination of static and dynamic variables representing both cognitive processing abilities and precursor literacy skills. Results seem to suggest that the very earliest stages of word reading development there may be a strong association between the rate of growth in cognitive processing, precursor literacy, and decoding skills.