mental retardation and developmental disabilities research reviews 2: prerequisite skills, early...

MENTAL RETARDATION AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES RESEARCH REVIEWS 2: 54-63 (1996)

PREREQUISITE SKILLS, EARLY INSTRUCTION, AND SUCCESS

IN FIRST-GRADE READING: SELECTED RESULTS FROMA

LONGITUDINAL STUDY Donna M. Scanlon and Frank R. Vellutino

Child Research and Study Center, The University at Albany, Albany, New York

We report selected results from a longitudinal study o f reading development. Children were assessed on a variety o f measures on their entry t o kindergarten. Their reading success was evaluated in first grade. Further, characteristics of the language arts program to which the children were exposed in kindergarten were observed. Measures administered in kindergarten were evaluated for their ability t o predict first-grade reading achievement. It was found that a child’s ability t o name letters in kindergarten was the strongest predictor of first-grade reading skill. Among the nonread- ing measures, measures o f linguistic processing skills, particularly phonological processing, were found to account for the largest proportion o f variance in first-grade reading. Several characteristics of the kindergarten language arts program were also found t o be related t o first-grade reading performance. Further, some o f these relationships varied depending on the risk status of the children for experiencing later reading difficulties as determined on the basis of the prediction aspect of the study. For example, the proportion of time devoted t o activities designed t o attune children t o the phonemic nature of language was related t o first-grade reading success for “at risk” children, but not for children who were not identified as ”at risk.” o 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc. MRDD Research Reviews 2: 54-63

Key Words: reading disability, early identification, early intervention, language arts instruction, kindergarten instruction

everal studies of early reading development have indicated that children who enter school lacking various literacy skills S are a t greater risk of experiencing subsequent reading

difficulties than are children who enter school with a more solid foundation in these areas. Interest in evaluating a given child’s risk status derives from the growing belief that providing “at risk” children with early intervention will reduce or eliminate long-term difficulties with reading. Despite the assumption that risk status can be moderated by instructional variables such as the provision of adcttional instruction, there is a lack of research evaluating the relationship between children’s risk status and their instructional history prior to being identified as reading impaired. It would certainly seem possible, as Clay [1987] contended, that one contributor to early reading difficulty is the failure of instruction to meet the needs of individual children at

o 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

the outset of their educational experience. Indeed, in light ofthe mounting evidence that early reading difficulties are frequently associated with difficulties in phonological processing and alphabetic mapping, and that training designed to improve these skills has a positive impact on reading and spelling skills in both the short term and the long term, it would seem that regular classroom programs that place some emphasis on these skills would have a beneficial effect, particularly for those children who are identified as at risk when they enter school.

One approach to limiting the contribution of “less than optimal” instruction to long-term reading difficulties entails the provision of additional instruction in either one-to-one or small group settings. Several studies evaluating the effectiveness of this approach have shown that it is relatively effective in reducing the incidence of reading difficulties [Clay, 1985; Ball and Blachman, 1991; Wasik and Slavin, 1993; Torgesen et al., in press]. Although the results of such studies are encouraging, they do not address the question of whether the provision of such skill and strategy instruction in regular classroom settings would influence the progress of children identified at the outset as being at risk for later reading difficulties.

We conducted a longitudinal study of reading development in which children’s risk status for later reading difficulty was evaluated early in kindergarten through the administration of a battery of tests evaluating reading readiness skills, rudimentary reading skills, and cognitive abilities that might underlie reading ability. In addition, naturalistic observations were made in their kindergarten classrooms to determine whether characteristics of the kindergarten language arts instruction to which the children were exposed moderated their risk status with regard to later reading difficulties. For children who entered kindergarten at risk for later reading difficulties, several characteristics of kindergarten language arts instruction were associated with improved performance in first-grade reading.

AddrrrP rcprint requests to Dr. Donna M. Scanlon, Child Rewarch and Study Centsr, Univcrsity a t Albany, Huited Hall 134, 135 Western Avmoc, Alhany, NY 12222.

Toshiba

Highlight

EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF CHILDREN AT RISK FOR READING DIFFICULTIES

Several studies of children prior to the initiation of their formal reading instruction have been effective in identi- fying characteristics that place children at risk of experiencing early reading difficulty. For example, certain familial characteristics such as having a parent or sibling who experienced reading difficulty are good predictors of reading impairment [Scarborough, 1989, 1990; DeFries et al., 19911. Further, in a meta-analysis of studies of learning, Horn and Packard [ 19851 provided evidence that behavioral characteristics such as attention-distractibility and internalizing behavior problems bear a predictive relationship to later reading problems. However, most studies designed to identify predictors of later reading difficulties have provided evidence that cognitive and linguistic characteristics, measured early in a child’s school career, account for substantial proportions of variance in later reading performance. Moreover, when a variety of cognitive skills are examined, it typically is the linguistically based skills that are the strongest predictors of reading performance [de Hirsch et al., 1966; Jansky and de Hirsch, 1972; Satz et al., 1978; Badian, 1982; Butler et al., 1985; Catts, 19911. For example, Butler et al. [1985] evaluated kindergarten children 011 a wide assortment of cognitive, linguistic, and visuo-spatial tasks and evaluated their reading skill in first, second, third, and sixth grade. In predicting to each of these grade levels, the language-based measures accounted for the greatest proportion of variance. Badian [1982] reported similar findings in predicting reading performance in first, second, and third grade based on assess- ments administered six months prior to kindergarten entry. In addition, de Hir- sch et al. [1966] and Jansky and de Hirsch [1972] obtained evidence that language deficits in kindergarten children presaged reading difficulties for the same children in second grade. Further, Satz et al. [1978] reported that a battery oflanguage measures administered to kindergarten children accurately identified 71% of those who experienced reading difficulties in first grade and 84% of those who did not experience such dificulties.

In these studies, the types of language-based measures found to account for substantial variance were those that evaluated semantic and syntactic skills. However, in all of these studies, the samples included some children for whom language difficulties might have been

relatively prevalent owing to the fact that these children came from lower-class rather than middle-class backgrounds or from families for whom English was not the language used at home. Moreover, in several of the studies, some language and language-based abilities were not assessed. These included, for example, measures of phonological skills such as phoneme awareness and verbal memory. These skills have been found, in both prediction and training studies, to be strongly related to the development of reading skills. For example, Bradley and Bryant 11983, 19851 found a significant relationship between performance on a sound categorization task administered to four- and five-year-olds and the reading and spelling achievement of these children three years later. Lundberg et al. [1980] also demonstrated that training pre-readers in sound segmentation had positive effects on later reading skills.

In the current study, we used a more restricted sample in order to identify a group of children at risk for later reading difficulties who potentially would meet the criteria for specific reading disability [Vellutino, 19791. Thus, only children attending schools located in middle- to upper-middle class comniun- ties and for whom English was the language of the home were included in the sample. This was done to allow us to evaluate the relationship between aspects of linguistic development and reading ability in a group of children who had had adequate opportunity to acquire the language of instruction. Further, measures of phonological processing skills were included along with measures of other aspects of linguistic processing skill to allow an evaluation of the relative contribution of various types of linguistic skills to success in beginning reading. In addition, measures of reading and reading- related subskills, rudimentary math skills, verbal and visual memory, new learning, visual-spatial processing skill, and executive functioning were included in the test battery administered in kindergarten. All of the areas of functioning assessed in the battery have, in one or another theory of reading disability, been implicated as playing a causal role in the development ofreading skill [Vellutino, 1979, 19871.

INSTRUCTIONAL VARIABLES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON CHILDREN IDENTIFIED AS AT RISK FOR LATER READING DIFFICULTY

This component of the study was of particular interest because of growing evidence that the provision of specific

types of language arts activities during the primary grades can have a beneficial effect on reading and spelling performance. For example, Adams [1990] has reviewed a substantial body of literature indicating that, in beginning reading instruction, activities focused on helping the child to become attuned to the sound characteristics oflanguage (phoneme awareness) and to the utility of letter-sound relationships (the alphabetic principle) have a generally positive effect on later reading performance [see Blachman, 19943. However, the majority of such evidence derives from experimental studies, and their results may or may not generalize to regular classroom settings. Further, most such studies have provided little or no inforniation concerning the effectiveness of such training for children who either are or are not considered to be at risk for later reading di5culties.

Debate about the appropriate ern- phasis in language arts instruction, particularly in the primary grades, has gone on for many years [Chall, 1967; Adams, 19901. The currently emerging consen- sus, which suggests the importance of training in phoneme awareness and alphabetic mapping, is based on the results of numerous studies that have involved presenting children with fairly con- strained training programs, either outside of the regular classroom [Bradley and Bryant, 1983, 1985; Ball and Blachman, 1988, 19911 or as separate (experimental) components of the regular classroom program [Lundberg et al., 19801. In our study, we sought to determine whether kindergarten teachers in a more naturalistic setting include similar types of activities, and, if so, whether the relative proportion of time devoted to phoneme awareness and alphabetic mapping activities is related to children’s later reading performance. We were also interested in evaluating whether or not the effects of such instruction would be related to entry-level skills and abilities. It seemed, on the basis of the predictive studies discussed thus far, as well as on intuitive grounds, that some children might be better equipped than others to profit from such instruction, which, of course, would have implications regarding the predictive validity and utility of any given predictor.

THE PRESENT STUDY Methods

Seventeen schools located in middle to upper-middle class comniunities participated in the study. All entering kindergartners in these schools were eligible for participation, with the restric-

MRDD RESEARCH REVIEWS FIRST GRADE READING RESULTS SCANLON &VELLUTINO 5 s

tion that they come from English- speaking homes. Approximately 1,400 children participated in the kindergarten portion of the study. The children entered the study in two cohorts (Cohort 1, n = 708; Cohort 2, n = 699) drawn from two consecutive school years of entering kindergartners.

Most of the schools involved in the project had half-day kindergarten programs. Four schools had full-day programs. Forty-three kindergarten teachers were involved in the study. Teachers in schools with half-day programs typically taught two sections of kindergarten per year, a morning and an afternoon group. Thus, if their school participated both years of the kindergarten phase of the study, which all but one school did, these teachers were responsible for teaching four sections of kindergarten during those years. Teachers in full-day programs taught one section of kindergarten per year. Two schools with full-day programs participated in the study only one year; the other two participated both years.

Kindevgarten Assessment Battery During the first half of their

kindergarten year, children in the study underwent an extensive evaluation that involved the administration of a variety of measures assessing skills and abilities in general areas, including linguistic processing, memory and new learning skdls, conceptual development, executive func- tions, pre-reading and rudimentary reading skills, and math skills. All testing was done on a one-to-one basis and typically was completed in two one-hour sessions. Brief descriptions of the instruments administered for each area assessed are provided in Figure 1. A full description of the kindergarten battery is provided in Scanlon et al. [submitted for publication].

First Grade Reading Assessment During November of the chil-

dren's first-grade year, their classroom teachers were asked to rate their progress in reading on a scale of 1 to 5, with a rating of 1 indicating that the child was experiencing extreme difficulty with reading and a rating of 5 indicating that the child was progressing extremely well. During the middle to late spring of their first-grade year, approximately 1,000 of the children were gven the Word Identification and Word Attack subtests of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised [Woodcock, 19871.

Classroom Ohsewation Procedures In order to evaluate the impact of

varying instructional emphases, classroom

Pre-Readins and Rudimentarv Readino Measures

Letter Identification - Subtest of the Woodcock Reading Hastery Test-Revised (WRHT-R) which presents items in both print and cursive (maximum score = 5 1 ) .

Word Identification - Subtest of the WRHT-R which presents a graded word list for identification (maximum score = 106).

Word Attack - subtest of the WRHT-R which presents the child with nonsense syllables which he/she is to attempt to decode (maximum score = 45).

Print Awareness (Huba 6 Kontos, 1985) - Assesses the child's understanding of the utility of printed materials as a vehicle for communication by asking child to choose the best way to communicate an idea (picture VS. written material) (maximum score = 10).

Print Conventions - Assesses the child's understanding of left to right and top to bottom directionality as a print convention as well as the concepts of letter and word and the purpose of common punctuation marks (maximum score =

pudimentarv Math Measures 15).

WPPSI-R Arithmetic - Subtest of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R, Wechsler, 1989). The subtest assesses the ability to solve verbally presented word problems.

Countina bv Is - Assesses the ability to count by rote from 1 to 40 (maximum score = lo).

Countina bv 2s - Assesses the ability to skip count (by 2s) from 1 to 40 (maximum score = 10).

Number Identification - Requires the child to read one, two, and three digit numbers (maximum score = 7).

Addition - Presents the child with addition problems in printed form. Single digit numbers are used throughout (maximum score = 4).

Linouistic Measures

phoneme Sementazion - neasure which requires the child to delete initial or final phonemes in one syllable words and to vocalize the phonemes that are different in minimally contrasted word pairs (maximum score = 23).

RaDid Namino Time - leasure of speed and fluency of name retrieval. Child is shown an array of objects and is asked to name each object as quickly as possible without making mistakes. Time = total time in seconds taken to name all items in the 5. x 10 array.

RaDid Namins Error - neasure of the number of errors made in completing the naming task described above.

RaDid Articulation Time - neasurea speed of articulation. Child must say each of 5 word pairs over and over again seven times. Time = average time in seconds to say pairs.

unouistic Concents - Subtest from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised (CELF-R, Semel, Wiig & Secord, 1987). This subtest measures comprehension of syntactic structure by havinq the child follow instructions of varying syntactic complexity (maximum score = 20).

Peabodv Picture Vocabularv Test-Revised (PPVT-R, Dunn 6 Dunn, 1981) - Measure of receptive vocabulary which uses a multiple choice format.

Memorv and New Learnins Measures

Word Memory - Child im asked to repeat lists of words which are 5 to 10 words in length. One point is awarded for each list which is recalled completely correctly (maximum score - 7). Sentence Memory - Child is asked to repeat sentences spoken by the examiner. One point is awarded for each sentence which is recalled completely correctly (maximum score - 7). Visual nemory - Test involves presenting the child with a pattern of dots on a matrix and then asking the child to reproduce the pattern. are presented (maximum score = 14)

Visual-Auditory Learnhq - Subtest of the WRHT-R which simulates learning to read using a whole word/meaning based approach. of the published version were used (maximum score = 57).

Fourteen patterns

Only the first few paragraphs

Conceptual Development Measures

WPPSI-R Information - Subtest from the WPPSI-R which assesses general world knowledge.

WPPSI-R Block Desion - Subtest from the WPPSI-R on which the child is asked to assemble blocks to reproduce geometric patterns.

Decentration - Ueasure of concrete operations assessing conservation, seriation and class inclusion (maximum score - 12).

Executive Function Measures

Target Search - Task on which the child is asked to search an array of figures and draw a line through all occurrences of a target shape; scoring is based on speed (TIME) and accuracy (CORRECT) of performance (maximum correct = 18).

Matchina Familiar FiQures Test Time and Error - Simplified version of the test by the same name developed by Kagan (1966). The child is asked to choose an exact replica of a target picture from among a group of highly similar foils; ucoring is based on latency to first response (TIME) and accuracy (ERROR) of performance.

Fig. 1. Kindergarten test battery.

56 MRDD RESEARCH REVIEWS FIRST GRADE READING RESULTS SCANLON &VELLUTINO

observations were conducted in each classroom. Five or six observations, last- ing through the entire kindergarten session, were conducted in each classroom, typically every h to 8 weeks over the course of the school year. If a teacher participated in the study for more than one year, observations were conducted only during the first year of her participation.

Participating teachers indicated that they planned no substantial modifications of the program during their second year of participation. Random checks on the similarity of programs from one year to the next indicated that no major modifications were made. In fact, the same materials and projects often were in use in corresponding weeks of school during the two years of this aspect of the project.

A computer-driven time-sampling procedure was used for data collection. For each observational “slice,” the observer was prompted by the computer to observe the classroom teacher for 10 seconds and then to respond to a series of six questions concerning the instructional group with which the teacher was interacting; the general focus of the teacher’s contact with the children; the teacher’s purpose; the type of materials in use; the specific focus of instruction; and the expected response from the children. O n average, it took the observer 20 to 30 seconds to finish coding an instructional “slice.” Thus, in the typical half-day kindergarten session, which lasted approximately 135 minutes, about 180 to 240 “slices” were coded per day of observation in any given classroom. This amounts to an average of slightly less than 2 “slices” being coded during each minute of observation. We did not code during special classes such as music and gym.

T o establish reliability in the observations, observers were initially presented with a coding manual that described circumstances under which each code should be applied. They were then given written descriptions of brief classroom scenarios and asked to code them. When they had obtained 90% or 95% accuracy in coding the written scenarios, video- tapes were used to provide the observers with practice in using the coding system in a more realistic situation. Finally, pairs of observers practiced using the system in regular kindergarten classrooms. The observers worked together in this way until their codings agreed with one another at least 85% of the time on each question. When this level of agreement was reached, observers were allowed to collect data independently in given classrooms. Reliability was checked every 6

Table 1. Correlations Between Kindergarten Measures and First-Grade Reading Measures and Correlations Among

First-Grade Outcome Measures

Teacher Word Word rating identification attack

Kindergarten measure?

Age .09 .02 Gender (0 = male, 1 = female) .17 .13

Prereading and rudimeiitary reading nieasurcs

Letter identification Word identification Print awareness Priiit conventions

Rudimentary math measures

WPPSI-R arithmetic Counting by 1 s Counting by 2s Number identification Addition

Linguistic nieasures

Phoneme segmentation Rapid naming time Rapid naming error Rapid articulation time Linguiqtic concepts Peabody picture vocabulary

Memory and new learning measures

Sentence memory Word ~nemory Visual memory Visual auditory learning

Conceptual development memory

WPPSI-R inforination WPPSI-R block design Decentration

Executive function measures

Matching fainiliar figures time Matching familiar figures error Target search test time Target search test correct

First-grade outcome measures

Teacher rating Word identification

.61

.38

.25

.24

.44

.44

.27 .56 .34

.36 - .29 -.18 -.14

3 2 .31

3 1 3 2 .22 .38

.35

.31 3 3

. I 3 - .26 -.15

.14

.59

.46

.27

.26

.41

.41

.28

.56 3 4

.42 - 3 2 -.18 -.16

.30

.28

.34 3 3 .23 .39

.38

.26

.31

.13 - .26 -.16

.10

.73

-.Ol .03

.44

.42

.20

.17

.39

.33

.2h

.47 -32

.43 - .28 -.21 -.15

.28

.25

3 1 3 4 . I7 .3 1

.32

.24 2 7

.09 -.21 - .06

.07

5 9 .81

to 8 weeks by having pairs of observers code the same kindergarten session. O n the rare occasions when the agreement level fell below the required 85% level for a given question, the pair of observers was required to code additional sessions together until all agreement rates were above 85%, which typically occurred in the very next session.

Results

Identfying Children At Riskfor Ldter Readirg D@culties

Correlations between each of the kindergarten variables and the first-grade reading indices are presented in Table 1.

These data show that the measures of letter and number identification skill are the variables that are most strongly related to first-grade reading performance. Sev- eral other measures within the rudimentary reading and math areas were also moderately correlated with later reading performance, as were several of the nieasures in the other areas assessed. However, it is also evident that among these later measures, the largest correlations occur for those that are linguistically based.

In order to evaluate the relative effectiveness with which the various areas assessed in kindergarten predicted later reading ability, stepwise multiple regres-

MRDD RESEARCH REVIEWS FIRSTGRADE R E A D I N G RESULTS SCANLON & V E L L U T I N O 57

sion analyses were employed, using each group of predictor variables to predict reading performance at the end of the first grade as measured by the Word Identifi- cation measure. Similar analyses were done using the other outcome measures, with similar results. The Pre-Reading and Rudimentary Reading measures, as a group, accounted for the largest proportion ofvariance ofany of the sets analyzed (41%). Further, as expected on the basis of the simple correlations, the Letter Identification measure, by itself, accounted for the largest proportion of variance (35.2%). The Math Set also accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in first-grade reading performance (34.1%). As in the Reading Set, it was the verbal labeling task (Number Identification) that accounted for the largest proportion of the variance in reading performance (31.4%).

The Linguistic Set and the Memory and New Learning Set both accounted for substantial amounts ofvariance (26.3% and 23.9% respectively), although neither accounted for nearly as much variance as did the Reading Set. Within the Linguis- tic Set, the Phoneme Segmentation measure accounted for the largest proportion of variance (18.5%). A substantial proportion of additional variance (4.6%) was accounted for by the Rapid Naming Time index. The measure included to assess syntactic skills, Linguistic Concepts, and that pertaining to semantic skills, the PPVT-R, accounted for relatively small proportions of additional variance in these analyses (2.7 and 0.596, respectively). For the Memory and New Learning Set, it was the Visual Auditory Learning Test that entered the equation first, accounting for 14.9% of the variance. This measure, which requires a child to learn to associate verbal labels

with visual symbols, makes many of the same cognitive-skills demands as those involved in learning letter and number names. Therefore, it is not surprising that this measure emerged as the strongest predictor in this set. Also within this set, the verbal memory measures (Word Memory and Sentence Memory) together accounted for an additional 9% of the variance, while the Visual Memory measure accounted for virtually none of the variance in this analysis.

The analysis using the Conceptual Development Set accounted for 17% of the variance in first-grade reading performance. The Visual Processing and Execu- tive Function sets accounted for 11% and 9%, respectively, and clearly had relatively little influence as compared with the other types of cognitive variables evaluated.

In order to identify a set ofvariables drawn from the entire kindergarten battery that would account for the largest proportion of variance in first-grade reading performance, stepwise multiple regression analysis using all possible variables was employed. A total of 49% of the variance in first-grade reading performance was accounted for by the measures included in the kindergarten battery. Further, as expected, based on the earlier analyses, most of the variance was accounted for by measures of rudimentary reading skills, particularly Letter Identifi- cation, and Number Identification. Once these variables entered the equation, very little additional variance was accounted for by the other measures in the battery. These results suggest that children are unlikely to experience serious difficulty with reading if they come to school having already learned the labels associated with the symbols (letters and num-

bers) that provide the foundation for primary grade instruction.

In order to evaluate the accuracy of this suggestion, we undertook an additional analysis to determine the degree to which children could be accurately classified as either likely or unlikely to experience severe reading difficulties in first grade on the basis of their kindergarten letter-name knowledge. Table 2 presents several different scores that might be used as cutoff scores to identify children as at risk for experiencing problems with learning to read. These cutoff scores would classify between 10% and 40%, in 5 percentage-point incre- ments, of the larger sample as being at risk. Also shown, for each cutoff score, are the percentages of children in the at-risk group who ultimately were identified by their first-grade teachers as experiencing severe difficulties in learning to read and who thus were accurately classified by the letter-identification cutoff score. The last column of Table 2 presents the percentage of children who were accurately classified as not at risk because they scored above given cutoff scores on the kindergarten Letter Identifi- cation measure and ultimately were rated by their first-grade teachers as experiencing no severe difficulties with reading.

As the data in Table 2 reveal, the vast majority of children scoring above the various cutoff scores were judged by their first-grade teachers to be experiencing no severe difficulties with reading. Classification of children scoring below the various cutoff scores as being at risk is, however, much less accurate. This finding suggests that factors other than pre-existing literacy skills are influential in the reading development of children who enter school with relatively poor letter-name knowledge.

~~

Table 2. Percentages of Children Identified as At Risk for Reading DifEculties Based on Letter-Identification Cutoff Scores and Percentages of Groups At Risk and Not At Risk Accurately Identified as Indicated By First-Grade Teachers’

Ratings of Reading Ability

Letter Approximate Percent of accurate classifications identification percent of raw score cutoff

total sample a t risk

At risk group

Not at nsk group - -

10 10 62 63 85.44 14 15 55.48 87.35 17 20 51.79 88.61 20 25 47.06 90.27 22 30 43.69 91.72 23 35 43.07 92.65 25 40 38.30 94.84

Instructional Infruencer on First Grade Reading Success

For each teacher and for each observation question, the percentage of time each of the codes was assigned was computed. For Question 1 (With whom is the teacher interacting?) and Question 2 (What is the general focus of the activity?), the computation of percentages was based on the entire kindergarten session. For Questions 3 through 6, which referred exclusively to time devoted to language arts instruction, the computation of percentages was based on the total time allotted to language arts instruction. Descriptive statistics for each of the instructional charactenstics considered are presented in Table 3.


As shown in Table 3, there is a striking degree of variability in terms of the percentage of time teachers devoted to various activities during the course of the lundergarten day. Also striking is the fact that, for the typical kindergarten classroom included in this study, nearly half of the session, on average, was devoted to management, or noninstruc- tional activities. Given that the majority of kindergartens included in this study were half-day programs, this finding indicates that only about one hour per day was devoted to direct instruction. Only a portion of this hour was devoted to language arts instruction. Further, during language arts instructional time, the teacher frequently worked with individuals or small groups. Thus, for much of the time that typical participants in the study spent in kindergarten, they were not being provided with direct instruction. This finding might lead one to suspect that instructional emphasis would have little influence on the relative standing of individual children’s academic skills. However, it should be noted that when children were not the recipi- ents of direct instruction, they frequently were engaged in independent (seatwork) activities that were based on instruction given earlier. These activities frequently were designed to provide the children with the opportunity to practice or elaborate on a skill or strategy that had already been introduced. Therefore, it remains possible that the characteristics of kindergarten language arts instruction could influence later reading performance.

Given the results of the prediction aspect of the study described earlier, we were particularly interested in determining whether instructional emphasis in kindergarten would distinguish between children who did or did not experience difficulty in learning to read after having been identified as at risk for such difficulty on the basis of their performance on the letter-identification task in kindergarten. Instructional emphasis is most clearly tapped by Question 5 in the observation system (What is the specific focus of instruction?). Thus, we will concentrate on the results derived from this component of the observation system.

As noted earlier, in these analyses we were particularly interested in evaluating whether the effectiveness of training in phoneme awareness and alphabetic mapping in facilitating the acquisition of skill in reading, which has been demonstrated in experimental studies [Lundberg et al., 1980; Bradley and Bryant, 1983, 1985; Ball and Blachman, 1988, 19911,

Table 3. Percentage of Time Allocated to Various Activities during Observations in Each Kindergarten Classrooma

X SD Range

Question 1: lnstructionalgronpb

Whole class Small group Individual Other adult No contact

Question 2: Generalfocusb

Direct reading Indirect readjng Composing (writing) Language development Other academic Art and physical education General management Informal interaction

Question 3: TeacherpnrposeC

Modeling Tell infonnation Question and answer Feedback Listen and watch

Question 4: Materials‘

Trade book Text other Student composition Sentence written Word written Letters written Workbook Oral text Oral presentation Words oral Pictures Video or film

Question 5: .Spec&/ocusc

Read text Word identification Letter sounds Phoneme awareness Graphic features Word meaning Text meaning Recitation Letter names General information

Question 6: Expected responseC

Read silently Read orally Oral Listen and look Write Other

45.9 13.1 31.2

4.1 5.2

5.7 8.5 4.9

12.1 9.3 3.0

46.1 4.1

43.3 5.4

22.4 4.3

21.1

36.3 5.4

16.5 1.5 5.5 5.4 1.5 6.7 9.8 6.1 1.9 2.0

12.9 3.8 2.7 8.1 2.7 2.4

40.4 5.4 1 .5

13.5

8.1 11.8 35.9 35.1

4.9 3.9

8.6 5.8 7.1 2.6 2.7

2.7 3.2 2.7 3.7 4.1 1.6 4.5 1.8

8.8 2.3 5.7 1.9 7.5

10.9 3.7

10.2 1.5 3.5 5.0 2.7 5.8 7.9 5.2 1.4 3.9

7.0 2.1 2.7 4.7 2.8 1.8 9.1 4.8 1.6 7.4

4.2 5.3

10.2 9.2 3.5 3.2

13-60 5-31

21-57 1-12 1-15

1-13 2-1 5 1-10 4-20 2-17 1-8

36-60 1-8

23-64 1-12

11-39 1-11 6-38

7-57 0-1 6 2-44 0-6 0- 16 0-24 0-1 4 0-23 0-30 1-20 0-7 0-1 9

2-35 0-8 0-1 2 0-20 0-12 0-7

16-60 0-22 0-7 1-33

1-20 1-24

13-65 17-54 0-15 0-17

I Y ~ or SIX ~ U ~ ~ - S ~ S S I O ~ obsrwatrons were conducted m each clawoom. Codea wirh a l i m n oflrsr t l im 1.C are not lisred rrcentdgrs are bawd on the entire observational period ercenragcs are based on the time allocated to languagz arts mstmctton oidy.

would also be apparent in the naturalistic Phoneme Segmentation. Observers coded settings we used. The percentage of time the Specific Focus as Phoneme Aware- that a given teacher devoted to focusing ness when the teacher directed children’s children’s attention on the sound charac- attention to the sounds within given teristics of words (phoneme awareness) words (e.g., “You hear the sound of B at was reflected in two possible responses to the beginning of bear.”). Phoneme Segmen- Question 5: Phoneme Awareness and tation was coded when the teacher

MRDD RESEARCH REVlEWS FIRST GRADE READING RESULTS SCANLON &VELLUTINO 59

focused attention on breaking words into their individual sounds (e.g., “What is the first sound you hear in the word bear?”).

Instruction focusing on the alphabetic principle was also coded on Ques- tion 5. Several codes were available to the observers to reflect a focus on the alphabetic principle; these were Letter Sounds, Decoding, and Analogy. The category Letter Sounds was coded when instruction specifically focused on letter- sound relationships (e.g., “B” makes the /b/ sound.”). Decoding was coded if the teacher focused attention on using letter- sound correspondences to identify a word or word part (e.g., while pointing to the printed word hear, the teacher might say “What sound will we hear at the begnning of this word?”). Analogy was coded when the teacher encouraged children to think of words that have a number of letters in common with a given word and to use the sounds of the common letters to help identify the current word.

In order to evaluate the relationships between instructional focus, entry level skills, and success in first-grade reading, the sample of children was split into groups ofsubjects who, in kindergarten, were or were not identified as at risk on the basis of performance on the letter-name measure. The Low Letter- Identification group (LLID) consisted of

children who scored at or below the 40th percentile of children in the sample on the letter-identification measure; the High Letter-Identification group (HLID) consisted of children who scored above the 40th percentile on this measure. Each of these two groups was further divided into five groups on the basis of first-grade teacher ratings of reading performance, using the 5-point scale described earlier. The teacher rating was used as the grouping variable because it was the earliest reading index obtained during the first-grade year. It should be noted that teacher ratings collected in November correlated fairly highly with measures of Word Identification and Word Attack obtained later in the first-grade year (see Table I ) . The grouping of subjects in accordance with teacher ratings allowed the use of an analysis of variance approach consisting of a 2 (kindergarten letter- identification group) X 5 (first-grade reading rating) factorial design. For these analyses, the percentage of time kindergarten teachers devoted to specific aspects of language arts instruction served as the dependent measure.

When Phoneme Awareness served as the dependent variable, there was a significant main effect for letter-identification group (F(1,934) = 4.08, p < .05), reflecting the fact that teachers of children in the LLID group tended to focus

on phoneme awareness significantly more than did teachers of children in the HLID group. The interaction between letter- identification group and first-grade reading group was also significant (F(4,934) = 2.70, y < .05). Figure 2 de- picts this interaction. As is evident in the graph, first-grade reading performance was relatively unrelated to the percentage of time focused on phoneme awareness activities for children in the HLID group, whereas for children in the LLID group better first-grade reading performance was associated with having spent a greater percentage of time focused on phoneme awareness activities in kmdergarten. There was no main effect for first-grade reading group.

A similar analysis was carried out using the Phoneme Segmentation measure as the dependent variable. However, for this analysis neither the main effects nor the interaction was significant. The failure to find effects for this variable may be partially attributable to the fact that this code was rarely used by the observers (less than 0.5% of the time on average).

Similar analyses were conducted using codes that indicated focus on on the alphabetic principle. When Letter Sounds served as the dependent variable, a significant main effect for first-grade readinggroup (F(1,934) = 3 . 6 1 , ~ < .01) emerged (data not shown). However,

Teacher Rating of First Grade Reading Ability

t High in Kindergarten Letter ID

t Low in Kindergarten Letter ID ~~

Fig. 2. Graph depicting the relationship between kindergarten letter identification skills, first-grade reading performance, and the percentage of time devoted to phoneme awareness activities in kindergarten.

60 MRDD RESEARCH REVJEWS F J U T GRADE READING RESULTS SCANLON &VELLUTINO

there was no main effect for kindergarten letter-identification group and no interaction effect. It should be noted that the main effect for first-grade reading group did not correspond to a linear relationship between first-grade reading ability and the percentage of time devoted to letter-sound correspondence, as might have been anticipated. In fact, children who were in the lowest first-grade reading group tended to come from kindergarten classrooms in which teachers devoted a higher percentage of time to focusing on letter-sound relationships. It should also be noted, however, that very little direct instructional time was devoted to this type of activity (only 2-3% of language arts instructional time), but that independent seat-work activities designed to reinforce letter-sound correspondences were often assigned (although not coded by our observation system). Therefore, the lack of a linear relationship between training in letter- sound correspondences and first grade reading performance should be inter- preted very cautiously.

Other types of activities designed to promote understanding of the alphabetic principle (i.e., Decoding and Anal- ogy) were rarely observed. In fact, each of these types of activity was observed less than 0.5% of the time on average. The lack of emphasis on decoding and analogy strateges, in combination with the some- what limited emphasis on letter-sound

correspondences, suggests that direct instruction focused on promoting an understanding of the alphabetic principle may have run counter to the prevailing instructional philosophy for many of the participating teachers. Given that most of these teachers, in informal conversation, professed to be proponents of the “whole language philosophy,” this seems a likely possibility. This possibility is further supported by the fact that the largest proportion of language arts instructional time (41%), by a large margin, was focused on the meaning of texts presented by the teacher (see Table 3 ) .

When specific focus on Text Mean- ing was used as the dependent measure, neither the main effect nor the interaction term was significant. This was also true for several of the other specific-focus variables used as dependent measures: Reading Connected Text, which typically involved the children following along while the teacher pointed to and read a text; Graphic Features, which included discussions of the shapes of letters and how to print them; Meaning of Words, which typically involved discussions of the meaning of individual words that occurred in the context of a text the teacher was reading; Letter Names, which involved activities designed to teach or reinforce the associa- tion of printed letters and their names; and General Information, which involved book shape, color, or size of

pictures if the discussion did not directly support text comprehension, and of whether particular books had or had not been read.

Significant effects were found, however, for the two remaining variables. These were Word Identification, which included teaching and practicing sight words, and Recitation, which involved singing songs and reciting poetry with no written text present. For Word Identifica- tion, significant main effects were found for both Letter-Identification group (F(1,934) = 10 .31 ,~ < .01) andforFirst- Grade Reading group (F(4,934) = 5.04, p < .001). The interaction term for this variable was not significant. The main effect for Letter-Identification group reflects the fact that teachers of children in the LLID group devoted a smaller percentage of time to word identification activities than did teachers of children in the HLID group. It is possible that the teachers of children with lower letter- identification skills felt that the children were not ready to benefit fi-om instruction in word identification. The main effect for first-grade reading group was attributable to the fact that children in the lowest first-grade reading group had the least exposure to word identification activities in kindergarten, while the other four groups were more similar to one another on this characteristic. The absence of interaction effect suggests that a reduced emphasis on word identification activities

2.5 Very Low Below Average Average Above Average Very High

Teacher Rating of First Grade Reading Ability

-m- High in Kindergarten Letter ID

t Low in Kindergarten Letter ID

Fig. 3. Graph depicting the relationship between kindergarten letter identification skill, first-grade reading performance, and the percentage of time devoted to recitation activities in kindergarten.

MRDD RESEARCH REVtEWS FIRST GRADE READING RESULTS SCANLON &vELLUTINO 61

is associated with poorer reading pedor- mance regardless of children’s initial risk status.

In using the percentage of time devoted to Recitation activities as the dependent variable, neither of the main effects was significant. However, there was a significant interaction effect (F(4,934) = 3.06, p < .05). The data on which this interaction is based are de- picted in Fig. 3. Here it is clear that, for the LLID group, the percentage of time spent focused on Recitation activities is inversely related to first-grade reading performance. For the HLID group, on the other hand, there is relatively little relationship between Recitation activities and first-grade reading performance (although the lowest first-grade reading group did spend the greatest percentage of time on Recitation activities). It is unlikely that time devoted to Recitation activities, in and of itself, has a negative impact on later reading achievement. However, given the limited amount of instructional time available in the classrooms studied, it seems possible that recitation activities occupied time that night have been devoted to other types of language arts activities that would have had a beneficial effect on performance.

In considering the results of the observational component of the study, it is important to note that although specific instructional characteristics were the focus of the analyses, other characteristics of the teachers also, no doubt, contributed to the first-grade reading performance of individual children. For example, teachers of the most successful children in the LLID group may have differed from their less effective peers in their knowledge and understanding of the skills and abilities that provide the foundation for success as the child begins to learn to read.

Discussion The salient findings of this study

indicate that it is possible, shortly after they enter kindergarten, to identifjr children who are at risk for experiencing early difficulties with reading. The results also indicate that the ultimate outcome for a child identified as being at risk depends, at least in part, on the relative emphasis placed on various types of language arts activities during the child’s kindergarten year.

Kindergarten letter-name knowledge was found to be the best single predictor of first-grade reading performance. Number-Identification skill was found to be a close second in terms of its predictive power. Once these variables were entered into a multiple regression

equation, little additional predictive power was realized by the inclusion of other variables in the predictor set. These findings should not be taken as evidence that the mere mastery of letter and number name knowledge would play a large role in altering a child’s risk status for later reading problems. Rather, average or above-average performance on such skills probably reflects the cumula- tive effects of the myriad experiences a child has with print prior to entering school. In addition, performance on such tasks, no doubt, reflects the child’s interest in and motivation to learn about these symbol systems. Finally, the cognitive skills involved in learning letter and number names must, to a large extent, also be accessed in learning to identify printed words. Despite these cautionary notes however, it is clear fi-om the analyses presented that the child who

. . . modijication of kindergarten language arts programs, placing greater emphasis on phoneme awareness,

alp ha betic mapping, and word-identijica tion skills,

could be an appropriate jirst step on the road to

avoiding the identijication of a child as being reading

impaired.

enters school with well-developed skills in these areas is unlikely to experience difficulties at the early stages oflearning to read.

Children who enter school with poorly developed skills in these areas are much more likely to experience early reading difficulties. However, as the results of the observational analyses reveal, children’s risk status is, to some extent, moderated by their experiences in kindergarten. For example, children who scored in the at-risk range on the Letter-Identification task but whose first- grade teachers nevertheless judged them to be reading in the average or better range tended to come from kindergarten classrooms in which greater emphasis was placed on helping children become attuned to the sound structure of language

(phoneme awareness). This finding is entirely consistent with the correlational and experimental literature, which points to the importance of phonological awareness in the development of skill in reading and spelling. The current study contrib- utes yet another bit of confirmatory evidence of the importance of these skills.

The importance of phonologcal processing skills for reading development is given additional support by the results of the prediction aspects of the study. Phoneme segmentation skill was found to be the strongest predictor of first-grade reading performance, excluding the (pre-) reading and (pre-) math variables. Pho- neme segmentation emerged as a relatively strong predictor despite the fact that wide variability was noted in terms of the instructional experiences of the children in the study. It seems likely that the predictive power of phoneme segmentation and, perhaps, other measures, would have been greater had there been less variability, as typically would be the case in smaller studies involving children from fewer classrooms.

In summary, it appears that one important component to consider in determining which children are likely to experience early reading difficulties is the nature of the instructional programs to which they have been exposed, even at the kindergarten level. The reading success of children who enter school lacking in the rudimentary rea lng skills appears to be more sensitive to instructional variation than is the success of children who enter with better-developed skills. Clay [1987] suggested that a child should not be identified as reading impaired unless labor-intensive remediation has been tried and has failed. The results of the current study suggest that modification of kindergarten language arts programs, placing greater emphasis on phoneme awareness, alphabetic mapping, and word-identification skills, could be an appropriate first step on the road to avoiding the identification of a child as being reading impaired.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The data for this study were

obtained as part of a project conducted under the auspices of a special Center grant (P50HD25806) between the Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Na- tional Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Martha Bridge Denckla is the principal investigator overseeing the various research projects initiated under this grant. The research reported here is part of Project IV, The Reading and Language Project, under a


subcontract directed by Frank R. Vel- lutino and Donna M. Scanlon of the Child Research and Study Center of the University a t Albany.

The authors express their gratitude to the kindergarten teachers who so graciously allowed us into their classrooms both to work with their students and observe their teaching practices. We also thank the secretarial and administra- tive staff in participating schools who so helpfully facilitated data collection. In addition, we thank Lyn Gelzheiser, who assisted in the development of the observational component, and our co-workers who collected and collated the data: Sheila Small, Diane Fanuele, Melinda Taylor, Judy Moran, Melissa Hollenberg, Alice Pratt, Margaret Feldman, Jean Bums, and Helen Bakker. Finally, we thank Debra Spearing and RuSan Chen, who did the statistical analyses of the data.

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