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Understanding Children's Growth in Reading Comprehension: challenges and solutions

This study by Patricia Mathes, Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University explores the challenges in measuring comprehension growth in young children beyond decoding. It discusses the correlation between early comprehension measures and word reading, highlighting the need for additional time in assessments and innovative intervention strategies. The outcomes and effect sizes of various comprehension measures are also presented, along with conclusions on the sensitivity of certain measures. Recommendations for future research on effective comprehension assessment tools are discussed.

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Understanding Children's Growth in Reading Comprehension: challenges and solutions

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  1. Measuring Comprehension Growth in Young Children: Problems and Pitfalls Patricia Mathes, Ph.D. Southern Methodist University Institute for Reading Research November 12, 2004 Washington, DC

  2. The Problem Few, if any, measures adequately measure if children, who are still beginning readers, are making growth in their ability to comprehend text, beyond their ability to decode that text.

  3. Role of Decoding Early measures of comprehension are highly correlated to measures of word reading.

  4. Correlations among outcome variables 1. SAT 9 Comp. 2. Oral Read Rate .62 3. Word Efficiency .61 .91 4. Word Ident. .60 .79 .82 5. Passage Comp..58 .73.74.82 6. TPRI comp..28.33.32.39.45 7. NonW Effic. .48 .79 .82 .76 .66 .27 8. Word Attack .43 .59 .65 .80 .71 .32 .76 9. Verbal IQ .22 .02 .04 .15 .18 .04 .10 .16 1 2 3 4 56 7 8

  5. Time Matters • Measures that appear to have promise, also require additional time. • If comprehension is only one of many outcomes being assessed, then each assessment cannot take long or children become fatigued.

  6. Examples from Research Intervention 1: Comprehensive small group intervention incorporating: • Phonemic awareness, • Alphabetic knowledge and skills, • Text fluency, vocabulary, and • Comprehension strategy work.

  7. Comprehension Strand • Browse the Book and Set purpose • Self-monitoring • Retelling – sequencing • Main idea • Story grammar (narrative) • Knowledge Charting (expository)

  8. Outcomes Effect Size Means Study 1: Word Attack 112 Word Identification 105 Passage Comprehension 99 Study 2: Word Attack 110 .76 Word Identification 107 .51 Passage Comprehension 95 .21

  9. Percent of Children who achieved scores below 30th percentile Intervention Typical Practice Study 1 Passage Comprehension 12% (2%) 24% Study 2 Passage Comprehension 15% (3%) 29%

  10. Examining Passage Comprehension

  11. Examining Passage Comprehension

  12. Examining Passage Comprehension

  13. Examining Passage Comprehension Less common spelling patterns

  14. Examining Passage Comprehension

  15. Examining Passage Comprehension

  16. Conclusions • Woodcock Passage Comprehension may not be sensitive. • Decoding difficulty increases quickly, but not level of meaning processing. • Researchers should be using other measures. • But what should these measures be?

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