Diagnostic accuracy of Spanish and English screeners with Spanish and English criterion measures for bilingual students in Grades 1 and 2.

The purpose of this study was to examine the diagnostic accuracy of English and Spanish language screeners when predicting reading comprehension outcomes in both languages at the end of Grade 1 and Grade 2. Participants were 1221 Latino/a bilingual students in Grade 1 and 1004 in Grade 2 who were attending bilingual programs in the Pacific Northwest and in Texas. We used ROC curve analyses to calculate the area under the curve (AUC; A) for each measure. The decision thresholds we selected resulted in 71% of all comparisons having accuracy of at least 0.75. Letter naming, decoding, and oral reading fluency in Spanish were accurate in predicting reading risk on criterion measures in Spanish and in English in Grades 1 and 2 (A value of 0.75 or above). English screeners, however, only predicted reading risk on the English criterion measure, but not on the Spanish criterion measure, with a few exceptions. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Examiner error in curriculum-based measurement of oral reading.

Although curriculum based measures of oral reading (CBM-R) have strong technical adequacy, there is still a reason to believe that student performance may be influenced by factors of the testing situation, such as errors examiners make in administering and scoring the test. This study examined the construct-irrelevant variance introduced by examiners using a cross-classified multilevel model. We sought to determine the extent of variance in student CBM-R scores attributable to examiners and, if present, the extent to which it was moderated by students' grade level and English learner (EL) status. Fit indices indicated that a cross-classified random effects model (CCREM) best fits the data with measures nested within students, students nested within schools, and examiners crossing schools. Intraclass correlations of the CCREM revealed that roughly 16% of the variance in student CBM-R scores was associated between examiners. The remaining variance was associated with the measurement level, 3.59%; between students, 75.23%; and between schools, 5.21%. Results were moderated by grade level but not by EL status. The discussion addresses the implications of this error for low-stakes and high-stakes decisions about students, teacher evaluation systems, and hypothesis testing in reading intervention research.

In search of average growth: describing within-year oral reading fluency growth across Grades 1-8.

Measures of oral reading fluency (ORF) are perhaps the most often used assessment to monitor student progress as part of a response to intervention (RTI) model. Rates of growth in research and aim lines in practice are used to characterize student growth; in either case, growth is generally defined as linear, increasing at a constant rate. Recent research suggests ORF growth follows a nonlinear trajectory, but limitations related to the datasets used in such studies, composed of only three testing occasions, curtails their ability to examine the true functional form of ORF growth. The purpose of this study was to model within-year ORF growth using up to eight testing occasions for 1448 students in Grades 1 to 8 to assess (a) the average growth trajectory for within-year ORF growth, (b) whether students vary significantly in within-year ORF growth, and (c) the extent to which findings are consistent across grades. Results demonstrated that for Grades 1 to 7, a quadratic growth model fit better than either linear or cubic growth models, and for Grade 8, there was no substantial, stable growth. Findings suggest that the expectation for linear growth currently used in practice may be unrealistic.

Advanced (Measurement) Applications of Curriculum-Based Measurement in Reading.

The purpose of this article is to provide a commentary on the current state of several measurement issues pertaining to curriculum-based measures of reading (R-CBM). We begin by providing an overview of the utility of R-CBM, followed by a presentation of five specific measurements considerations: 1) the reliability of R-CBM oral reading fluency, 2) issues pertaining to form effects, 3) the generalizability of scores from R-CBM, 4) measurement error, and 5) linearity of growth in R-CBM. We then conclude with a presentation of the purpose for this issue and broadly introduce the articles in the special issue. Because oral reading fluency is one of the most common measures of R-CBM, much of the review is focused on this particular type of assessment; however, the issues presented extend to other assessments of R-CBM.

Vstreet.com: a web-based community for at-risk teens.

Most teens leaving the care of an agency are woefully unprepared and unsupported. Current approaches to aftercare are expensive and difficult to implement. This study evaluated a prototype version of Vstreet.com, an innovative website for at-risk youth designed to teach lifeskills and build community. Findings from a sample of youth in the Job Corps showed that the website was highly effective in increasing their knowledge of apartment hunting skills, feelings of peer social support, and intentions of staying in touch with their agency.