Exploring the Relationship between Text–Leveling Systems and Reading Accuracy and Fluency in Second–Grade Students who Are Average and Poor Decoders

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between different text-leveling systems and reading accuracy and fluency in second-grade students with and without decoding difficulties. Two-hundred-forty-eight second-grade students, 44 identified as low achieving (LA) and 204 identified as average achieving (AA) in decoding skill, participated in the 15-week study. During the study teachers collected data weekly on students' text-reading accuracy and fluency using curriculum-based measurement (CBM) techniques. Text attributes such as readability, decodability, percentage of high frequency words, average words per sentence, and percentage of multisyllabic words were estimated for each passage. Results using the entire sample of children indicated that accuracy of text reading was uniquely predicted by the percentage of high frequency words in the passages, whereas both the percentage of high frequency words and passage decodability made unique contributions to variance in passage-reading fluency. Moreover, results suggested that the relationship between text-leveling variables and reading performance was similar in the LA and AA groups, with only a slight trend favoring a stronger relationship between passage decodability and measures of text-reading performance in the AA group compared to the LA group.

[1]  L. Fuchs,et al.  Identifying a Measure for Monitoring Student Reading Progress. , 1992 .

[2]  P. Hatcher.  Predictors of Reading Recovery book levels , 2000 .

[3]  Richard C. Anderson,et al.  Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School , 1986 .

[4]  Richard L. Allington,et al.  If They Don't Read Much, How They Ever Gonna Get Good?. , 1977 .

[5]  Mark R. Shinn,et al.  Curriculum-Based Measurement: Assessing Special Children , 1989 .

[6]  Richard C. Anderson,et al.  How Many Words are There in Printed School English , 1984 .

[7]  Richard L. Allington,et al.  Content Coverage and Contextual Reading in Reading Groups , 1984 .

[8]  G. Tindal,et al.  Curriculum-Based Oral Reading Fluency Norms for Students in Grades 2 through 5 , 1992 .

[9]  Catherine Curry,et al.  So What's New in the New Basals? a Focus on First Grade , 1994 .

[10]  Ann Grafstein,et al.  The linguistic assumptions underlying readability formulae , 2001 .

[11]  L. Fuchs.  Monitoring Progress Among Mildly Handicapped Pupils , 1986 .

[12]  Sarah J. McCarthey,et al.  The Literature-Based Basals in First-Grade Classrooms: Savior, Satan, or Same-Old, Same-Old?. , 1998 .

[13]  S. Deno,et al.  Curriculum-Based Measurement: The Emerging Alternative , 1985, Exceptional children.

[14]  Robert N. Kantor,et al.  On the Failure of Readability Formulas to Define Readable Texts: A Case Study from Adaptations. , 1982 .

[15]  K. Stanovich.  Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. , 1986 .

[16]  Scott G. Paris,et al.  Strategies for Comprehending Text and Coping with Reading Difficulties , 1989 .