The importance of early literacy instruction and its role in later reading proficiency is well established; however, measures and procedures to screen and monitor proficiency in the area of early literacy are less well researched. The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the technical adequacy and validity of early curriculum-based literacy…

This report summarizes the spring 2003, seventh-grade reading achievement data from five different schools in an urban school district in a mid-sized city in the Pacific Northwest. The original data set contained 358 students, but 96 students were removed from the data set prior to analysis because they had no scores in any of the dependent…

Third and fifth grade teachers rated the mathematical skill level, classroom behavior, and effort of their students, most of whom had completed mathematics and reading achievement tests. Results indicated that mathematics and reading achievement test scores, together with student effort, were significant predictors of teacher rating of mathematics…

Evidence exists that reading achievement can be measured simply and validly by having students read aloud for one minute from vocabulary lists drawn from their basal reading series. Direct and frequent measurement of student performance using this procedure provides a means for continuously evaluating a student's instructional program. The present…

Using 660 elementary school students from six school districts as subjects, a study examined student performance in reading aloud from four different reading curricula (Houghton Mifflin; Ginn 720; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; and Scott, Foresman), and the sensitivity of scores within each curriculum to growth across grade levels. Three different…

This study examined the construct validity of curriculum-based measures of oral reading fluency from basal reading programs. Twelve special education students (grades 2-5) were monitored for oral fluency using 2 reading curricula (their instructional curriculum and the mainstream reading curriculum) throughout the academic year. Performance…

Convergent validity and divergent validity were studied in several basic skill areas using the multitrait-multimethod procedure outlined by D. T. Campbell and D. W. Fiske (1959). The academic skill domains considered were: (1) reading; (2) mathematics; (3) writing and language arts; and (4) spelling. A total of 297 students in grades 1 through 5…

This technical report outlines the results of a correlational study of an Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) measure, a Reading Comprehension measure, a Vocabulary measure, and a statewide, large-scale reading assessment. The effects of school income level, gender, ethnicity, Special Education status, and English Language Learner status are also…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has increased the role of assessment in K-12 education. Designed to ensure that all students meet high academic standards, the law currently requires states receiving Title I funds to test all children annually in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and report student performance disaggregated by poverty,…

This technical report provides data on the extent to which progress monitoring measures explain reading achievement. The four progress monitoring measures discussed are: letter sounding, phonemic segmentation, oral reading fluency, and comprehension given in either oral or written form. These measures were administered to first grade students in…