Patterns of early literacy and word reading skill development across the first 6 months of school and reading instruction.

Abstract

This study described the growth trajectories of 105 children (n = 55 boys) who had just started primary school in New Zealand (NZ). Children were assessed every fourth school week around 1.5 months after starting school, for five sessions on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills first sound fluency (FSF), AIMSweb letter sound fluency (LSF), and a newly created NZ word identification fluency (NZWIF-Y1), designed for alignment with beginning reading instruction in NZ. In addition to progress monitoring tasks, children were assessed at school entry and after progress monitoring on literacy-related criterion measures. All three progress monitoring measures were sensitive to growth over the children’s first 6 months of school. Cross-sectional time-series analyses indicated that within-child increases in FSF and LSF were associated with increases in NZWIF-Y1, although FSF did not add unique variance when both FSF and LSF were entered as predictors. Furthermore, growth mixture modeling indicated three latent growth trajectories for each indicator (FSF, LSF, NZWIF-Y1, respectively): Class 1—high initial scores and strong growth over time (72.09%, 55.87%, 22.81%); Class 2—lower initial scores and moderate growth over time (19.18%, 29.12%, 54.30%); and Class 3—low initial scores and limited progress over time (8.73%, 15.00%, 22.89%). Criterion measures assessed prior and after progress monitoring were typically associated with latent class membership. Results suggest relative growth in performance on repeated assessment of early literacy and word reading skills in beginning reading instruction distinguishes groups of students with differential skill acquisition.

Tender Shoots: A Parent‐Mediated Randomized Controlled Trial With Preschool Children Benefits Beginning Reading 1 Year Later

“…At the immediate post‐test, older pre‐schoolers in the SSS condition demonstrated benefits for their letter‐naming skills relative to ABC (Riordan et al, 2022), potentially reflecting a greater focus on print‐related literacy skills as children near school starting age in New Zealand. Children’s age also contributed to letter‐sound performance, in line with other NZ research showing that letter‐sound performance typically grows during children’s first year of school (Cameron et al, 2020; Cameron, Carroll, et al, 2023), potentially reflecting exposure to instruction. Cameron, Carroll, et al (2023) reported mean NWF‐correct letter sounds after 6 months of school ( M = 27.53, SD = 23.46), similar to the performance of children who participated in SSS in this study ( M = 26.00; SD = 22.88).…”

“…Children’s age also contributed to letter‐sound performance, in line with other NZ research showing that letter‐sound performance typically grows during children’s first year of school (Cameron et al, 2020; Cameron, Carroll, et al, 2023), potentially reflecting exposure to instruction. Cameron, Carroll, et al (2023) reported mean NWF‐correct letter sounds after 6 months of school ( M = 27.53, SD = 23.46), similar to the performance of children who participated in SSS in this study ( M = 26.00; SD = 22.88).…”

“…At follow‐up, age was the only reliable contributor to PSF performance. Longitudinal research documents a general pattern of growth in phonemic awareness in other NZ samples of children in their first year of school and literacy instruction (Cameron et al, 2020; Cameron, Carroll, et al, 2023). In our sample, follow‐up age parallels exposure to literacy instruction.…”

“…On average, children in our study were 65–66 months of age, suggesting they had been in school for approximately 5–6 months. In a longitudinal study of literacy acquisition from school entry, Cameron, Carroll, et al (2023) 6 collected PSF monthly across the first 6 months of school, with mean scores increasing from 14.79 ( SD = 15.57) to 33.97 ( SD = 18.55). Thus, the mean PSF performance of all three groups ( M = 20.79–24.79) in this study fell within this range.…”

“…Importantly, Cameron et al (2020), Cameron, Carroll, et al (2023) identified variations in developmental trajectories of letter‐sound development in the first year of school, which were associated with literacy progress at the end of the year. In particular, children displaying more limited progress in letter‐sound development during the year displayed lower decoding skills and instructional book level at the end of the year, and their teachers were more likely to express concern about their literacy progress.…”