Rising rates of chronic absenteeism across the nation underscore the need to explore the impact of attendance on the foundational literacy skills of kindergarten students. The absence of young learners from school jeopardizes essential instruction pivotal for literacy development. This study draws on a quantitative correlational approach and…

This quantitative study aimed to determine the growth of students who did and did not attend a state-funded pre-kindergarten program based on Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) reading achievement. The study occurred in a rural school district in the southeastern United States. The sample population consisted of one treatment group (n = 97) and…

Intervention is imperative when students enter kindergarten with deficits in early literacy skills due to multiple factors, including the complexities of a community's needs and resources. In the Seaford School District (SSD), entering kindergarten students lacked needed early literacy skills, as evidenced by low scores on the Dynamic Indicators…

Background: Dyslexia is a specific reading disability characterized by word recognition difficulties that can qualify a student for special education services under the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act" (IDEA; 2004; Yudin, 2015). As of 2024, 49 US states have legislation defining dyslexia and enumerating for schools…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if group differences exist in spelling accuracy or spelling errors between kindergarten children with hearing loss and children with normal hearing loss. Method: Participants included 23 kindergarten children with hearing loss and 21 children with normal hearing. All children used spoken English…

Kindergarten reading screening measures typically identify many students as at risk who later meet criteria on important outcome measures (i.e., false positives). To address this issue, we evaluated a gated screening process that included accelerated progress monitoring, followed by a simple goal/reward procedure (skill vs. performance assessment,…

The purpose of this two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods research study was to examine the correlation between kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers' self-efficacy and the impact on literacy achievement to determine how professional development (PD) positively impacted teachers with high self-efficacy. The study was conducted in a…

In education research, statistical significance and effect size are 2 sides of 1 coin; they complement each other but they do not substitute for each other. This descriptive study, however, was limited to effect size only because years of experience with Idaho statewide student samples of up to 24,000 the rare outcomes has been t-tests with…

Measuring and identifying risk for reading difficulties at the kindergarten level is necessary for providing intervention as early as possible. The purpose of this study was to examine concurrent validity evidence of two kindergarten reading screeners, Acadience Reading and Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI), as well as diagnostic accuracy at…

Early identification and instruction aimed at addressing potential reading difficulties is the key to preventing prolonged difficulties in learning to read and ensuring that all students are reading with proficiency by the end of third grade. Tier 1 core reading curricula needs to be: (a) evidence based, (b) systematic and structured, (c)…

Various stakeholders, such as policymakers and educators, require diagnostic feedback and actionable test results. One particular context in which fine-grained test results are of utmost importance is English language proficiency (ELP) assessments as they are used for critical decisions for students. Diagnostic classification models (DCMs) afford…

Little research has been conducted on Arabic letter knowledge. This study investigates the nature of Arabic letter knowledge, its dimensionality, and the relative difficulty of letter knowledge items, all within an item response theory (IRT) framework. Three letter knowledge tests were administered to 142 native Arabic-speaking kindergarteners…

These are the appendixes for the report, "Trends and Gaps in Reading Achievement across Kindergarten and Grade 1 in Two Illinois School Districts." This study examined reading achievement data for kindergarten and grade 1 students in two districts in Illinois: District U-46 (Elgin Area Schools) and District 186 (Springfield Public…

Complex research questions often need large samples to obtain accurate estimates of parameters and adequate power. Combining extant data sets into a large, pooled data set is one way this can be accomplished without expending resources. Measurement invariance (MI) modeling is an established approach to ensure participant scores are on the same…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine what impact volunteer tutoring has on improving the reading standardized test scores of K-2nd elementarystudents in East Baton Rouge Parish public schools. An Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple regression was conducted to analyze the extent in which Volunteers in Public Schools' (VIPS)…