Tracing Student Responsiveness to Intervention With Early Literacy Skills Indicators: Do They Reflect Growth Toward Text Reading Outcomes?

Abstract

This study investigated four widely-used early literacy skills indicators in reflecting growth toward first-grade text reading skills. Examining the progress of 101 students across kindergarten and first grade, Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) and Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) were more accurate than Initial Sounds Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency in discriminating between students grouped according to successful or unsuccessful first-grade reading outcomes. LNF and NWF slope also discriminated between groups, but graphed observed scores suggested potential problems in identifying students with persistently low achievement. Results suggest the need for continued refinement of early literacy skills measures for instructional decision-making.

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, grant H326M050001.

Notes

1. The DIBELS provides two levels of cut scores indicating students “at some risk” or “at risk” for not meeting future reading targets. Due to inaccuracies associated with these cut scores reported in recent research (Goffreda et al., 2009; Nelson, 2008), and to more closely connect scores on the measures with our 30th percentile ORF criterion, we chose to report the 30th percentile associated with each measure according to the DIBELS normative data.