ERIC Number: ED546651
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Apr-30
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Measuring Early Spanish Literacy: Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the "Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Kindergarteners" in Spanish ("PALS español K")
Huang, Francis L.; Ford, Karen L.; Invernizzi, Marcia; Fan, Xitao
Grantee Submission, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) (San Francisco, CA, Apr 27-May 1, 2013)
We investigated the latent factor structure of the "Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Kindergarteners" in Spanish ("PALS español K"). Participants included 590 Spanish-speaking, public-school kindergarteners from five states. Three theoretically-guided factor structures were measured and tested with one half of our sample using confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) methods. We then replicated the best fitting model with the second half of our sample and used multigroup CFA (MGCFA) to test for the model's configural and metric invariance. MGCFA revealed that PALS español K exhibited measurement invariance when comparing populations of boys and girls. Our results support the educational utility of PALS español K as a tool for assessing important reading constructs and informing early interventions across gender groups with Spanish-speaking students.
Descriptors: Phonological Awareness, Kindergarten, Screening Tests, Spanish Speaking, Public Schools, Factor Analysis, Early Intervention, Gender Differences, Test Validity, Reading Skills, Hispanic American Students, Criterion Referenced Tests, Rhyme, Phonics, Alphabets, Spelling, Word Recognition, Emergent Literacy, Goodness of Fit
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: Kindergarten; Primary Education; Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California; Minnesota; Missouri; North Carolina; Virginia
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305A090015