Mentor
Dr. Kathyrn Gerken
Participation year
2011
Project title

A Look at Relationship Between Reading Scores Across Three Grade Levels

Abstract

The 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress report indicated that more than 40 % of children in the United States were reading below the basic skills expected in reading. Reading is a critical skill that must be developed early in the academic years and students without basic reading skills have difficulty throughout school and in many subject areas. Thus it is imperative that difficulties in reading be identified early so interventions can be put in place. Many school districts administer standardized achievement tests, but not all use those results to develop remediation plans for children or even look carefully at how well those test scores and early grades in reading predict later performance in reading. The purpose of the present study was to determine the relations between reading grades across first, third, and sixth grades as well as determine the relations between standardized test scores in reading and reading grades. There were 203 students for whom we had reading grades across the three grade levels and 89 students for whom we had ITBS total reading scores as well as reading grades across the three grade levels. The data for this study were selected from an existing data set from eleven elementary schools in an urban Iowa city. Results show that there is a moderate relationship between these scores across the three grade levels. First grade reading grades and those earned in the third grade show a stronger relationship than first and sixth grades (rxy=.603, rxy=.484, p<.01 relative="" to="" itbs="" total="" reading="" scores="" the="" correlation="" between="" and="" grade="" was="" .498="" .551="" .741="" p="">

Tabitha  Reynolds
Education
Arkansas State U