Early Reading Performance

Abstract

An unresolved question in early screening is whether test-based or teacher-based assessments should form the basis of the classification of children at risk of educational failure. Available structured teacher rating scales are lacking in predictive validity, and teacher predictions of students likely to experience reading difficulties have yielded disappointing true positive rates, with teachers failing to identify the majority of severely disabled readers. For this study, three educational screening instruments were developed: (a) a single teacher rating, categorizing children into three levels of reading ability (advanced, average, poor); (b) a 15-item teacher questionnaire designed to measure students' cognitive and language ability, attentional and behavioral characteristics, and academic performance; and (c) a battery of language and reading tests that are predictive of, or correlate with, reading failure. The concurrent validity of each instrument was assessed in a sample of 312 Australian schoolchildren from kindergarten, Year 1, and Year 2. Students were assessed at the end of the 1989 school year after having completed 1, 2, or 3 years of schooling. The results suggest that the nature of the skills required for success in reading changes in the first 3 years of schooling. Both teachers and tests concur more closely as children progress through the elementary years and as the risk behavior (reading) becomes more accessible to direct measurement. Carefully focused teacher rating scales may be a cost-effective means of identifying children at risk of reading failure. Improved teacher rating scales should be developed and used to assist in the early screening process.

Teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities: An examination of the relationship between teachers' judgments and students' performance across a continuum of rating methods.

“…However, more recent studies suggest that intelligence scores were more strongly related to reading and mathematics achievement scores than teacher ratings (Eaves, Williams, Winchester, & Darch, 1994) and teachers' ratings may not reliably identify specific educational disability categories among children experiencing academic problems (Gresham et al, 1997). Additionally, Kenny and Chekaluk (1993) found that using standardized teacher estimates (i.e., a 15-item rating scale constructed by the authors) resulted in more reliable estimates of secondary students' reading skills. Furthermore, researchers have demonstrated that teachers' perceptions of students' academic skills may be enhanced when teachers are given more explicit information about the specific content of the academic area targeted (Demaray & Elliott, 1998).…”

Independent Validation and Clinical Utility Study of the Hellenic WISC-III Using a Greek-Cypriot Sample

“…Here, teachers´ ratings were used instead of school grades because no formal grading system exists for students in the primary education. The validity of teachers' judgments compared to standardized achievement scores was verified in many studies (e.g., Kenny & Chekaluk, 1993;Sofie & Riccio, 2002). The utility of teachers as tests has been supported in the Cyprus context as well (Vrachimi-Souroulla, Panayiotou & Kokkinos, 2009).…”

Evaluating a Web-Based Clinical Decision Support System for Language Disorders Screening in a Nursery School

“…The early detection of language disorder tools has well-documented limitations in the specialized literature [4], such as: (1) subjectivity of the person who completes the questionnaire or scale of values [33], and his/her previous knowledge or specific training in relation to linguistic skills; (2) inconsistencies between the teacher’s observations and the child’s capacity in evaluation tests [34,35], due to possible differences in the child’s linguistic conduct in spontaneous daily situations and to his/her execution during a formal evaluation, characterized by a major inflexibility [36]; and (3) trustworthiness of the predictive power of the questionnaires used due to the fact that they depend on the age of the children, where the estimations of teachers seem to be less trustworthy when smaller children are evaluated, in relation to the rapid cognitive and behavioral changes that they try out in these early ages [37,38]. …”