This manuscript provides information on datasets pertaining to Project KIDS. Datasets include behavioral and achievement data for over 4,000 elementary-age students participating in nine randomized control trials of reading instruction and intervention between 2005-2011, and information on home environments of a subset of 442 collected via parent survey in 2013. All data is currently stored on an online data repository and freely available. Data might be of interest to researchers interested in individual differences in reading development and response to instruction and intervention, as well as to instructors of data analytic methods such as hierarchical linear modeling and psychometrics.
AbstractSocioeconomic status and gender are important demographic variables that strongly relate to academic achievement. This study examined the early literacy skills differences between 4 sociodemographic groups, namely, boys ineligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRL), girls ineligible for FRL, boys eligible for FRL, and girls eligible for FRL. Data on kindergarteners (N = 462) were analysed using multiple-group confirmatory factory analysis. Early literacy skill differences between boys and girls are more nuanced than previously reported; subsidy status and gender interact. Both boys and girls from high-poverty households performed significantly lower than the girls from low-poverty households in alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and spelling. There were gender gaps, with a female advantage, among children from high-poverty households in alphabet knowledge and spelling and among children from low-poverty households in alphabet knowledge. These results highlight the importance of employing methodologically sound techniques to ascertain group differences in componential early literacy skills.Keywords: early literacy skillsgendersocioeconomic statusmultiple-group confirmatory factor analysiskindergarten Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by grant P50HD052120 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD or the National Institutes of Health.Notes on contributorsJulia Lee Ai Cheng, PhD, works as a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. She holds a master's degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctoral degree in Special Education from Florida State University. While Dr. Lee was at Florida State University, she worked closely with renowned professors in her field such as Professor Dr. Stephanie Al Otaiba and Professor Dr. Barbara Foorman, co-chairs of her doctoral dissertation. Dr. Lee also underwent substantial training as a reading interventionist. She has also volunteered for America Reads, a national literacy campaign. Her research interests include early identification and remediation of reading difficulties and disabilities, language and literacy profiles among early elementary students, and technology use for the early identification and intervention of reading difficulties and disabilities. Dr. Lee's current research project, in her bid to contribute to the advancement of learning disabilities research in Malaysia, is entitled "Development of a comprehensive diagnostic instrument for the identification and classification of language and literacy skills in primary school children with reading disabilities". This research project, which runs from 2013–2015, is funded by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education. Dr. Lee enjoys teaching undergraduate courses in cognition and learning, human development psychology, and providing one-to-one intervention sessions to children with learning disabilities. She also teaches a graduate course entitled Social and cultural dimensions in learning and instruction.Stephanie Al Otaiba, PhD, joined Southern Methodist University in January 2012 as Professor of Teaching and Learning in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education & Human Development. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the Florida State University (FSU) and was on faculty at the Florida Center for Reading Research. She received her PhD in 2000 in Human Development from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and prior to that, she was a special educator for over a decade in the United Arab Emirates. She enjoys teaching graduate courses in literacy, special education, assessment, response to intervention, and mentoring doctoral students. Dr. Al Otaiba's research interests include school-based literacy interventions, response to intervention, learning disabilities, diverse learners, and teacher training. She has published over 80 journal articles and book chapters related to these interests. She has also developed reading curricular materials. Her line of research has been supported by several federally funded grants from the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences, the Office of Special Education Programs, and from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Her dissertation was awarded the 2001 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the International Reading Association, and in 2010 she was the recipient of The Council for Exceptional Children Division for Research Distinguished Early Career Research Award. She also received the Developing Scholar Award and the Graduate Faculty Mentor Award at FSU in 2010. She teaches graduate courses in the Reading and Writing and Special Education programs. Dr. Al Otaiba serves on review panels for grants for the Institute of Education Science and has reviewed for the Office of Special Education Programs. She is an Associate Editor of Education Researcher and the Elementary School Journal and also serves on numerous editorial boards for scholarly journals in the field of education. Dr. Al Otaiba has consulted nationally and internationally related to early literacy intervention and assessment.
The purpose of this cluster-randomized control field trial was to was to examine the extent to which kindergarten teachers could learn a promising instructional strategy, wherein kindergarten reading instruction was differentiated based upon students' ongoing assessments of language and literacy skills and documented child characteristic by instruction (CXI) interactions; and to test the efficacy of this differentiated reading instruction on the reading outcomes of students from culturally diverse backgrounds. The study involved 14 schools and included 23 treatment (
This study used a large state-wide database to examine the oral reading fluency development of second and third grade students with emotional disturbance or learning disabilities and their general education peers. Oral reading fluency measures were administered to 185,367 students without disabilities (general education), 2,146 students identified with an emotional disturbance, and 10,339 students with a learning disability. Student status and growth trends were examined in a piecewise model at each grade level for the full sample as well as for a subsample with reading difficulties. Data suggested students with disabilities performed significantly below students without disabilities in initial status and growth. Gender was also examined as a moderator of outcomes for each of the study groups.
For many students at risk of reading difficulties, effective, early reading instruction can improve reading outcomes and set them on a positive reading trajectory. Thus, response-to-intervention models include a focus on a student’s Tier I reading instruction as one element for preventing reading difficulties and identifying students with a learning disability. The purpose of this study was to examine the amount of time kindergarten students at risk of reading difficulties actively engaged in reading print during Tier I reading instruction, and the extent to which time in reading print was related to end-of-year reading achievement. Findings revealed the amount of time students were engaged in reading print predicted end-of-year reading achievement, although time engaged in reading print during Tier I was limited overall. Student- and teacher-level factors and their relationship to the amount of time students engage in reading print is also examined.
Research examining effective reading interventions for students with reading difficulties in the upper elementary grades is limited relative to the information available for the early elementary grades. In the current study, we examined the effects of a multicomponent reading intervention for students with reading comprehension difficulties. We used a partially nested analysis with latent variables to adequately match the design of the study and provide the necessary precision of intervention effects. We examined the effects of the intervention on students’ latent word reading, latent vocabulary, and latent reading comprehension. In addition, we examined whether these effects differed for students of varying levels of reading or English language proficiency. Findings indicated the treatment significantly outperformed the comparison on reading comprehension (Effect Size = 0.38), but no overall group differences were noted on word reading or vocabulary. Students’ initial word reading scores moderated this effect. Reading comprehension effects were similar for English learner and non-English learner students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
Core reading instruction and interventions have differential effects based on student characteristics such as cognitive ability and pre-intervention skill level. Evidence for differential effect based on affective characteristics is scant and ambiguous; however, students with problem behavior are more often non-responsive to core reading instruction and intensive reading interventions. In this study, we estimated the range of students’ behavior ratings in which a core reading instruction intervention was effective using a data set including 3,024 students in K-3. Data came from seven independent studies evaluating the Individualized Student Instruction (ISI) Tier 1 reading intervention and were pooled using integrative data analysis. We estimated Johnson-Neyman intervals of student behavior ratings that showed a treatment effect both at the within and between classroom level. ISI was effective in improving reading scores (b=0.51, p=.020, d = 0.08). However, students with very low or very high behavior ratings did not benefit from the approaches (range of behavior rating factor scores: -0.95 – 2.87). At the classroom level, students in classrooms with a higher average of problem behaviors did not benefit from ISI (average classroom behavior rating factor score: 0.05 – 4.25). Results suggest differentiating instruction alone is not enough for students with behavior problems to grow in reading ability.
We examined the effects of transcription instruction for students in first grade. Students in the lowest 70% of the participating schools were selected for the study. These 81 students were randomly assigned to: (a) spelling instruction, (b) handwriting instruction, (c) combination spelling and handwriting instruction, or (d) no intervention. Intervention was provided in small groups of 4 students, 25 min a day, 4 days a week for 8 weeks. Students in the spelling condition outperformed the control group on spelling measures with moderate effect sizes noted on curriculum-based writing measures (e.g., correct word sequence; g range = 0.34 to 0.68). Students in the handwriting condition outperformed the control group on correct word sequences with small to moderate effects on other handwriting and writing measures (g range = 0.31 to 0.71). Students in the combined condition outperformed the control group on correct word sequences with a small effect on total words written (g range = 0.39 to 0.84).
