Analyses that reveal how treatment effects vary allow researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to better understand the efficacy of educational interventions. In practice, however, standard statistical methods for addressing Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (HTE) fail to address the HTE that may exist within outcome measures. In this study, we…

We examined the relations between working memory, emergent literacy skills (e.g., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, rapid-automatized naming), word reading, and listening comprehension to online reading processes (eye movements), and their relations to reading comprehension. A total of 292 students were assessed on working memory and…

Language comprehension is crucial to reading. However, theoretical models and recent research raise questions about what constitutes this multifaceted domain. We present two related studies examining the dimensionality of language comprehension and relations to reading comprehension in the upper elementary grades. Studies 1 (Grade 6; N = 148) and…

This study addressed the role of reading motivation as a potential determinant of losses or gains in reading competence over six weeks of summer vacation (SV). Based on a sample of 223 third-grade elementary students, structural equation analyses showed that intrinsic reading motivation before SV contributed positively to both word and sentence…

In this article, preProgress in Reading Literacy Study (prePIRLS) 2011 data is used to compare the performance of different language of instruction groupings (English, Afrikaans and African languages) in primary schools on the more complex, higher-order reading comprehension items tested in a large-scale international test. PrePIRLS 2011…

Research indicates the primary difference between strong and weak readers is their phonemic awareness skills. However, there is no consensus regarding which specific components of phonemic awareness contribute most robustly to reading comprehension. In this study, the relationship among sound blending, sound segmentation, and reading comprehension…

This longitudinal study of 78 Canadian English-speaking students examined the applicability of the stability, cumulative, and compensatory models in reading comprehension development. Archival government-mandated assessments of reading comprehension at Grades 3, 6, and 10, and the Canadian Test of Basic Skills measure of reading comprehension…

The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of formal teacher competence on pupils' reading achievement. The data comes from the Swedish participation in PIRLS 2001 in grade 3. Information was obtained from pupils (n = 5271) and teachers (n = 351). The analyses were conducted using 2-level structural equation modeling. Teacher…

Conceptualizations of developmental trends are driven by the particular method used to analyze the period of change of interest. Various techniques exist to analyze developmental data, including individual growth curve analysis in observed and latent frameworks, cross-lagged regression to assess interrelations among variables, and multilevel…

Prominent models of word reading concur that the development of efficient word reading depends on the establishment of lexical orthographic representations in memory. In turn, word reading skills are conceptualised as supporting the development of these orthographic representations. As such, models of word reading development make clear…

The increased emphasis on using student growth measures in teacher evaluation has raised questions about how to treat test scores from students with disabilities. This study explores the consequences of three common approaches for treating scores from students with disabilities in statistical approaches to estimating teacher effectiveness: (1)…

The simple view of reading proposes that reading comprehension is the product of word reading and language comprehension. In this study, we used the simple view framework to examine the early prediction of reading comprehension abilities. Using multiple measures for all constructs, we assessed word reading precursors (i.e., letter knowledge,…

We explored the usefulness of first and second grade reading measures and responsiveness criteria collected within a response-to-intervention (RtI) framework for predicting reading disability (RD) in third grade. We used existing data from 387 linguistically diverse students who had participated in a longitudinal RtI study. Model-based predictors…

In the present study we investigated a developmentally changing role of text reading fluency in mediating the relations of word reading fluency and listening comprehension to reading comprehension. We addressed this question by using longitudinal data from Grades 1 to 4 and employing structural equation models. Results showed that the role of text…

This study examined transactional development of mothers' beliefs (self-efficacy, success attributions of a child's success to maternal effort) and children's academic skills. Six hundred sixty-eight children and their mothers were evaluated twice: at the beginning of the first grade and at the end of the third grade. Mothers' beliefs were…