Reading Success Results Across the Year Groups

Abstract

This chapter describes the Reading Success results across the year groups and compares the students’ performance on the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC) with results from school-based reading measures. For students in their learning to read phase (Year 1), we also report their Year 2 results. For students in their reading to learn phase of schooling (Year 4), we only report their reading results at the end of that school year. All results are described using our five-step assessment to intervention framework, based on the Simple View of Reading. We demonstrate how the assessment results can be used to create speech-to-print profiles for students who can be categorised as demonstrating: (a) specific word reading difficulties; (b) mixed reading difficulties; (c) specific comprehension difficulties; and (d) non-specified reading difficulties. Based on these profiles, we suggest which students may benefit from supplemental intervention (i.e. Tier 2 or Tier 3).

1 Learning to Read Cohort Results

As described in Chap. 2, parental consent for their children’s participation in the project was provided for 93 students attending Year 1. These students were seen in Term 4 of Year 1. The following sections first provide an overview of the results obtained through the five-step assessment to intervention process (see Fig. 2.2), with suggestions for supplemental intervention when indicated.

1.1 Step-by-Step Assessment Results—Year One

• Step 1: Assess Reading Skills

All Year 1 students were assessed on the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC; Snowling et al., 2012) in Term 4 of the school year. As a group, these students in the ‘learning to read’ phase of development scored within normal limits on the three YARC scales (see Table 3.1): reading accuracy (RA), reading rate (RR), and reading comprehension (RC). It should be noted that reading rate can only be calculated if students complete levels 1 and 2 of the YARC (as opposed to the beginner level and level 1).

Table 3.1 Student performance on the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (n = 93)

• Step 2: Further Assessment of Students who Scored below Expectations on RC

As shown in Table 3.1, when applying a standard score cut-off of 85, 26 students scored below expectations on the RC component of the YARC.

• i. We first checked if students’ poor performance in RC could be explained by their challenges in RA. Only 6 of the 26 students demonstrated poor RA on the YARC.

• ii. The next step was ascertaining the listening comprehension (LC) skills for the 26 students who scored below expectation in their RC ability. One student left the school between assessment points, and therefore LC data were only available for 25 students. It was found that 8 of these 25 students scored below expectations on the language comprehension task (Understanding Spoken Paragraphs subtest of the CELF-5; Wiig, Semel, & Secord, 2017).

After checking RA and LC skills, there were 16 students who demonstrated RC difficulties and performed within expectations for both LC and RA. Therefore, these students were classified as showing non-specified reading difficulties. Of these 16 students, 6 students demonstrated low RR (SS < 85), and 4 students had RR not calculated.

The flow chart in Fig. 3.1 provides a visual representation of the reading profiles for all students in Year 1, including the 26 students who performed below expectations for RC, including their skills in RA and LC.

Fig. 3.1

Results from Steps 1 and 2 from the assessment to intervention process. One student had left the school by step 2

• Step 3: Further Assessment of Word Recognition Skills

Further assessments of the 6 students with poor RA were conducted. These results showed that 5 of the 6 students with RA scores below expectations also showed orthographic difficulties on the LeST (Larsen, Kohnen, Nickels, & McArthur, 2015), i.e. z-score < −1.0. Only 2 of the 6 students performed below expectations for phonological awareness (score below the 25th percentile) on the Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test—Revised (SPAT-R: Neilson, 2003). The single word reading assessment (CC-2; Castles, Coltheart, Larsen, Jones, Saunders, & McArthur 2009) showed strengths and difficulties across the 6 students, but all students performed below expectations on at least one word type (i.e. regular, irregular, and/or nonsense words).

• Step 4: Creating Speech-to-Print Profiles (n = 26)

The assessment results for the 26 students who performed below expectations for RC were compiled to provide an overall picture of their strengths and weaknesses in the different domains assessed. The reading results for each reading profile for these 26 students are described below and shown in Tables 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5.

Table 3.2 Assessment results for students with a specific word reading difficulties (SWRD) profile in Year 1

Table 3.3 Assessment results for students with a mixed reading difficulties profile in Year 1

Table 3.4 Assessment results for students with a specific comprehension difficulties (SCD) profile in Year 1

Table 3.5 Assessment results for Year 1 students with a non-specified reading difficulties profile

Specific Word Reading Difficulties Only 1 student (S303) presented with a specific word reading difficulties (SWRD) profile. As shown in Table 3.2, this student showed difficulties in RA at both the text level and single word level. However, the student’s RA difficulties did not seem to arise as a result of weaknesses in orthographic knowledge or PA skills.

Mixed Reading Difficulties Table 3.3 outlines the assessment results for the five students with mixed reading difficulties profiles at the end of Year 1. As shown, these students had difficulties with both RA and LC. Based on further assessment of their reading skills, it was also found that all 5 students demonstrated difficulties in single word reading, as well as orthographic knowledge. Only 2 (S40 and S17) of the 5 students showed difficulties with phonological awareness.

Given the challenges across WR and LC, we recommend that students with this type of profile receive supplemental intervention at a Tier 2 (or Tier 3) level of support, targeting both WR and LC skills based on their end-of-Year 1 performance. With improved WR, these students would still be at risk of specific comprehension difficulties (considering their poor performance in LC), and continued monitoring should be in place.

Specific Comprehension Difficulties Table 3.4 shows the assessment results for students identified with SCD. Because these students demonstrated adequate performance in RA at the text level (based on the YARC), no further testing of single word reading, orthographic knowledge, or PA was conducted. As shown in Table 3.4, the students with SCD profiles at the end of Year 1 showed specific difficulties in language comprehension, suggesting they would benefit from supplemental intervention targeting their LC and RC skills.

Non-specified Reading Difficulties Table 3.5 shows the results for students who could not be categorised into one of the three reading profiles described above. As shown in Table 3.5, 11 of these 16 students with NS reading difficulties profiles demonstrated challenges with RR (either SS < 85 or unable to be calculated). For these students, ongoing monitoring is suggested, and further testing may be required. For example, difficulties in RR could be indicative of phonological retrieval difficulties and these students may thus require further assessment in this area. However, there are other possible explanations for the poor RC performance of some of these students, resulting in a non-specified reading difficulties profile without clear challenges in WR or LC. We have listed possible reasons in the final column of Table 3.5 (see also Chap. 1 for more detail).

Poor Comprehension Monitoring To adequately respond to the questions following the reading of a passage, students need to monitor their comprehension while reading. One example is participant S16 who showed excellent reading accuracy (SS 117) as well as a very fast reading rate (SS 113). This rapid rate may have hindered this student’s ability to monitor her comprehension; when administering a language comprehension task, S16 scored well within normal limits (SS10 on the Understanding Spoken Paragraphs subtest of the CELF-5).

Limited Capacity Working Memory Model (Crystal, 1987) Another consideration for the NS profiles is that these students are still in the ‘learning to read’ phase of development, which means that more cognitive resources are needed for decoding, with fewer cognitive resources available for RC, particularly for students whose reading rate is poor. These results suggest that ongoing monitoring for students with NS profiles may be required, and further assessment should be conducted if difficulties in any reading domains persist.

1.2 Considerations When Changing Assessment Cut-off to SS80

When conducting standardised assessments with normative data, it is important to consider changes to reading profiles when different cut-offs are used to determine reading performance. The decisions described in the previous sections were based on employing a 1SD cut-off to indicate reading performance that was ‘below expectations’. As a result, we identified just over 28% of students needing follow-up assessment at the end of Year 1. However, according to the YARC manual, SS < 80 is used to indicate performance that is within the ‘severe’ range. If we had applied this SS80 cut-off in the Reading Success project, we would have identified 14 students with RC skills that were below expectations (i.e. 15%; see Table 3.1). Following the same assessment steps as described above and using a more stringent cut-off of SS < 80, we would have identified the following reading profiles: mixed reading difficulties profile: n = 3; specific word reading difficulties: n = 0; specific comprehension difficulties: n = 4; and non-specified: n = 7. It is important that the school team uses a collaborative approach in determining what cut-off will be applied to indicate reading performance and understands the potential implications. In this case, using a cut-off of SS80 may have been acceptable, although our research design does not allow us to draw definitive conclusions. Regardless, it is important to consider other available data, such as how the student is functioning in the classroom context to guide the interpretation of assessment results and help inform the intervention plan for each student.

1.3 Summary—Year One Experimental Test Results

The results for the ‘learning to read’ cohort show that when using the YARC as a standardised test of reading performance, using SS85 as a cut-off, approximately 28% of students were considered at risk, based on their RC performance in the learning to read phase of development. Using our step-by-step approach based on the SVR as a framework, four different reading profiles were identified at the end of Year 1. The students’ performance on the YARC assessment was compared with the results from school-based reading measures (i.e. PM Benchmark Reading Assessments). We will discuss these results in the following section.

2 School-Based Versus Experimental Test Results—Learning to Read Cohort

During the early school years, the school used the PM Benchmark Reading Assessments (Smith, Nelly, & Croft, 2009; see Chap. 2). Based on this individually administered test, students were categorised as average or below average (using level 16 as the benchmark for satisfactory performance). In this section, we compare the students’ performances on the assessments administered as part of the Reading Success project with the results from the PM Benchmark, a school-based reading measure.

2.1 Year 1: YARC RC Versus PM Benchmark

We found a significant moderate to strong correlation between student performance on the PM Benchmark (level) and their performance on the YARC RC (SS), r = 0.68 (p < 0.001). Table 3.6 shows the results comparing the students’ performance on the YARC RC subtest (applying SS85 cut-off) and the PM Benchmark. As shown in Table 3.6, 75/92 students were correctly identified as performing within or below expectations (81.5%). However, 17/92 students were misidentified (18.5%); i.e. the results from one test did not match the results from the other test. These results are discussed further below. It is important to note, however, that the PM level is based on a child’s performance across decoding and comprehension skills, whereas the YARC reports a student’s skills separately across these two domains. Thus, while the following compares these assessments in terms of identification of children at risk of reading difficulties, the differences across the assessments must be acknowledged and considered when interpreting these comparisons.

Table 3.6 Year 1 students identified with reading difficulties on the RC component of the YARC versus the PM Benchmark

Table 3.7 outlines the assessment data for the 13 students who performed within average expectations for their year level on the PM Benchmark, but failed to meet expectations on the YARC RC component. As shown, 10 of these 13 students had profiles consistent with ‘non-specified’ reading difficulties at the end of Year 1.

Table 3.7 Reading data of the 13 Year 1 students who passed PM Benchmark but who performed below expectations on the YARC RC subtest

As shown in Table 3.6, a further 4 students showed average RC skills on the YARC at the end of Year 1 but failed to meet the benchmark for PM. These students’ results are shown in Table 3.8.

Table 3.8 Reading data of four Year 1 students who performed below expectations for PM Benchmark but who performed within normal limits on the YARC RC subtest

2.2 Year 1: YARC RA Versus PM Benchmark

Next, we compared performance on the RA component of the YARC with PM Benchmark performance. We found a strong correlation between student performance on the PM Benchmark (level) and their performance on the YARC RA (SS), r = 0.81 (p < 0.001). The results from this comparison are shown in Table 3.9.

Table 3.9 Year 1 students identified with reading difficulties on the RA component of the YARC versus the PM Benchmark

As shown in Table 3.9, 81 students met expectations on both assessments (87%). However, 12 students (13%) only met expectations on one of the tests. Only one student performed well on the PM Benchmark (level 21) but did not reach expectations in RA on the YARC (S38; see Table 3.7). This student showed a mixed reading difficulties profile. The breakdown of assessment results for the remaining 11 students who performed below expectations on the PM Benchmark but showed satisfactory performance in RA on the YARC is shown in Table 3.10. The three students with ‘typical’ Year 1 reading profiles based on the YARC RA (S9, S87, S299) in the table below are also included in Table 3.8 when investigating which students performed WNL on the YARC RC, but below expectations on the PM Benchmark.

Table 3.10 Reading data of 11 Year 1 students who performed below expectations on the PM Benchmark, but within expectations for RA on the YARC

2.3 Summary Year 1 YARC Versus PM Benchmark Results

Performance on the PM Benchmark was significantly correlated with student performance on the YARC RA (r = 0.81) and YARC RC (r = 0.68). Furthermore, use of the PM Benchmark resulted in correct classification of 81% of students who performed poorly in RC on the YARC. However, using the PM Benchmark does not differentiate between students’ reading profiles and may miss some students who show reading comprehension difficulties. Thus, if the PM Benchmark is being used within schools to assess reading performance, we recommend other available data (e.g. based on classroom performance) are also considered by school teams to supplement the PM Benchmark results and ensure students with reading comprehension difficulties are being correctly identified in the early years.

3 Follow-up Results One Year Later—Year Two

All students were closely monitored during Year 2 with some students obtaining supplemental intervention targeting their areas of difficulties (i.e. WR, LC, or both, depending on their reading profiles). Most of the students were reassessed for monitoring purposes in Term 4 of Year 2, and these results are discussed below.

A total of 70 students (75% of the original cohort of 93) were available (with parental consent) for follow-up assessments one year later (Year 2). Four students had left the school, and parent/caregiver consent forms were not returned for 19 students. Of these 19 students, five had been ‘flagged’ as at risk, based on their performance in RC (see Fig. 3.1). The results of the Year 2 YARC performances are displayed in Table 3.11.

Table 3.11 Student performance on the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (n = 70) in Year Two

When investigating these students’ performance on the YARC in Year 1, the following results were found:

• Of the 4 students (S40, S49, S17, and S45) who scored below SS85 in RA in Year 2, two students showed challenges in RA in Year 1 (S40 and S17), and all four had shown difficulties with reading rate as well as significant difficulties in orthographic knowledge (z-scores < −2.0).

• Of the 10 students who scored below SS85 in RR in Year 2, all 10 students had also shown challenges in RR in Year 1.

• Of the 6 students (S40, S23, S303, S82, S49, and S17) who scored below SS85 in RC in Year 2, five students showed challenges in RC in Year 1 (SS < 85) and 3 students showed challenges in RA in Year 1. All students except S82 had been flagged ‘of concern’ in Year 1. Unfortunately, no further assessment results are available for S82, as this student was away when we conducted our follow-up testing.

4 Overall Summary—Learning to Read Cohort

Using our five-step assessment to intervention framework, 28% of students at the end of Year 1 were identified as having reading difficulties. Using the SVR as a guide, four different reading profiles emerged. When comparing these results with school-based reading measures reasonably high correlations between the PM Benchmark data and student performance on the YARC RC and/or YARC RA were found with more than 80% agreement in classification of average versus below average readers on both assessments. Based on these results, the PM Benchmark may be a suitable reading assessment during the early years of schooling, although we recommend using a higher cut-off for the PM Benchmark and monitoring those students who end up on level 16 or 17, particularly for  reading fluency. For example, teachers may administer the Test of Word Reading Efficiency 2nd Edition (TOWRE-2; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2012), which assesses a student’s fluency in sight word reading and phonetic decoding skills and takes only 5 min.

When the students were reassessed one year later, many students showed a marked improvement. It was promising to see that at the end of Year 2 (third year of schooling), only 3 students showed significant reading difficulties; two of these students demonstrated a mixed reading difficulties profile (S40 and S17) and one (S49) showed specific word recognition difficulties. These students require focused, more intensive support for WR. Further support is also indicated for all students who continued to struggle in reading comprehension. Chapter 5 provides examples of interventions that specifically target the language comprehension skills needed for successful reading comprehension. Finally, the importance of fluent decoding (as measured through RR) should not be underestimated. Fluency in word recognition is needed to obtain automaticity in reading skills to allow students to move from their learning to read to reading to learn stage of schooling.

5 Reading to Learn Cohort Results

The five-step assessment to intervention process was also applied to students in Year 4 (i.e. reading to learn phase of development). Parental consent for their children’s participation in the project was provided for 78 students attending Year 4; 77 students were available for testing in Term 4 of Year 4. The following sections provide an overview of the results from the five-step assessment to intervention process, with suggestions for supplemental intervention when indicated. Finally, the students’ reading performance on the YARC is compared to their results obtained from school-based reading measures.

5.1 Step-by-Step Assessment Results—Year Four

• Step 1: Assess Reading Skills

As a group, the students in the reading to learn phase of development (i.e. Year 4 cohort) scored within normal limits on the three YARC scales. These results are shown in Table 3.12.

Table 3.12 Year 4 student performance on the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (n = 77)

• Step 2: Further Assessment of Students who Scored Below Expectations on RC

As shown in Table 3.12, 33 students scored below expectations on the RC component of the YARC.

• i. We first checked if students’ poor performance in RC could be explained by their challenges in RA; 18 of the 33 students (54%) with poor RC demonstrated poor RA on the YARC.

• ii. The next step was ascertaining the LC skills for the 33 students who scored below expectation in their RC. Only 32 of these 33 students were available for LC testing. It was found that 13 of the 32 students (41%) scored below expectations on the language comprehension task (Understanding Spoken Paragraphs subtest of the CELF-4; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2006).

After checking RA and LC skills, there were 9 students who demonstrated RC difficulties but performed within expectations for both LC and RA. Therefore, these students were classified as showing non-specified reading difficulties. Four of these students demonstrated low RR (SS < 85) on the YARC.

The flow chart in Fig. 3.2 provides a visual representation of the reading profiles for the 33 students who performed below expectations on RC, including their skills in WR and LC, and shows the reading profiles based on these assessment results.

Fig. 3.2

Results from Steps 1 and 2 from the assessment to intervention process. One student was unavailable for testing at step 2

• Step 3: Further Assessment of Word Recognition Skills

Further assessments of single word reading were conducted with the 18 students with poor RA on the YARC. Of these 18 students with RA scores below expectations, a total of 17 showed difficulties in single word reading on the CC-2 across at least one word type. Of interest, participant S09 performed below expectations in RA at the text level but demonstrated age-appropriate decoding skills across all single word types.

• Step 4: Creating Speech-to-Print Profiles (n = 33)

The assessment results for the 33 students who performed below expectations for RC were compiled to provide an overall picture of their strengths and weaknesses in the different domains assessed. The reading results for these 33 students are shown in Tables 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, and 3.16.

Table 3.13 Assessment results for students with specific word reading difficulties (SWRD) profiles in Year 4

Table 3.14 Assessment results for students with mixed reading difficulties profiles in Year 4

Table 3.15 Assessment results for students with specific comprehension difficulties (SCD) reading profiles in Year 4

Table 3.16 Assessment results for students with non-specified reading profiles in Year 4

Specific Word Reading Difficulties Ten students presented with a SWRD profile. As shown in Table 3.13, all students demonstrated weaknesses in RA at both the text level and single word level. Seven of these students also had underlying orthographic knowledge difficulties.

Mixed Reading Difficulties Table 3.14 outlines the assessment results for the seven students with MRD profiles. As shown, these students demonstrated difficulties with both RA and LC. Through further assessment of their reading skills, it was also shown that all students, except one, demonstrated difficulties in single word reading. These students should be considered for supplemental intervention at a Tier 2 or Tier 3 level of support, targeting both WR and LC skills.

Specific Comprehension Difficulties Table 3.15 presents the reading results for students identified with a specific comprehension difficulties profile. These students showed difficulties in comprehension, regardless of the modality (spoken or written).

Non-specified Reading Difficulties Finally, there were 9 students who performed poorly in RC, but showed adequate performance in RA (on the YARC) and on a language comprehension measure. The results are shown in Table 3.16. As previously described in Chap. 1, reasons for poor performance in RC could include difficulties in comprehension monitoring and working memory capacity (e.g. the students who showed difficulty with RR and/or single word reading, including S37, S23, and S41).

5.2 Summary—Year 4 Experimental Test Results

In drawing together the findings from assessment for the ‘reading to learn’ cohort, it was evident that approximately 43% of these Year 4 students (n = 33) demonstrated RC skills below expectations (applying SS85 cut-off). Using our step-by-step assessment process, based on the SVR as a framework, four different reading profiles were identified, with 7 students showing MRD, 6 showing SCD, 10 showing SWRD, and 9 students demonstrating a non-specified reading deficit. Our assessment battery seemed effective in helping us identify these different reading profiles. Using a language comprehension task allowed us to differentiate between students with dyslexia (who showed poor reading comprehension due to their challenges in word recognition) and those whose difficulties in language comprehension contributed to their low scores in reading comprehension. Further assessment of students who demonstrated poor performance in word recognition at text level (i.e. SWRD and MRD profiles) showed that all but one of these students demonstrated weaknesses in single word reading (non-word reading and regular word reading) using the CC-2; 70% of the students with SWRD showed significant difficulties with orthographic knowledge. Students’ speech-to-print profiles may now be used to identify which skills should be targeted in intervention, whether it is at Tier 2 or Tier 3 within an RtI framework. A description of the interventions provided based on these reading profiles is described in detail in Chap. 5.

6 School-Based Versus Experimental Test Results—Reading to Learn Cohort

The students’ performance on the YARC subtests was then compared to the data obtained as part of the school-based reading assessments. As described in Chap. 2, the PAT-R (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2018) was routinely used at the school to assess the reading skills of the Year 4 students. Data from 64 students were available.

6.1 Year 4: YARC Versus PAT-R

We compared students’ performance on the PAT-R to their performance on the YARC RC and YARC RA subtests. Students were considered to score average on the PAT-R if their scaled score was ≥ 3; for the YARC subtests, we chose a cut-off of SS ≥ 85. We found significant, moderate correlations between performances on the PAT-R and the YARC RC (r = 0.481, p < 0.001) and between performances on the PAT-R and the YARC RA (r = 0.487, p < 0.001). Table 3.17 shows the results when cross-tabulating the students’ scores.

Table 3.17 Year 4 (n = 64) students identified with reading difficulties on the RC component of the YARC versus the PAT-R

Based on these comparisons, 48 students (75%) were identified as either average or below average on both tests. However, performance on the two tests did not align for 16 students. Their results are shown in Table 3.18.

Table 3.18 Performance of the 12 students who passed the PAT-R but performed below expectations on the YARC RC (shaded), as well as the 4 students who failed the PAT-R but performed WNL on the YARC RC

When comparing student performance on the YARC RA to their performance on the PAT-R, similar results were found (see Table 3.19). Based on these comparisons, 44 students (68%) were identified as either average or below average on both tests. However, performance on the two tests did not align for 20 students. Nine of the 20 students are included in Table 3.18; 4 students showed low reading accuracy on the YARC; 7 students showed poor reading comprehension.

Table 3.19 Year 4 (n = 64) students identified with reading difficulties on the RA component of the YARC versus the PAT-R

7 Overall Summary—Reading to Learn Cohort

Approximately 43% of the reading to learn cohort demonstrated poor reading skills at the end of Year 4 (i.e. their fifth year of schooling). In applying the five-step assessment to intervention process, four different reading profiles were identified. When comparing students’ performance on the YARC RC and YARC RA with the PAT-R, between 68 and 75% agreement in classification of average versus below average readers was found. Closer inspection of the comparisons showed no clear pattern, although students with specific word recognition difficulties (dyslexia) were likely to perform well on the PAT-R. We suggest that the PAT-R may not be sensitive to reading challenges and recommend for the school to consider an alternative monitoring tool.

8 Chapter Summary

This chapter presented the results of the assessments conducted as part of the Reading Success project and described the comparisons between these assessment results and school-based data. Assessment results were reported for two distinct cohorts of children: (i) those in the learning to read phase and (ii) those in the reading to learn phase of development. It was shown that at the end of Year 1, 28% of the learning to read cohort demonstrated difficulties in RC. However, when these students were followed up 12 months later, only 9% showed persistent difficulties in RC at the end of Year 2, with the cohort showing improvements in all aspects of reading development. When considering the assessment results for the reading to learn cohort, approximately 43% of the students demonstrated poor RC skills at the end of Year 4. We showed that, when guided by the SVR as a framework, we identified which different underlying causes were contributing to the students’ RC challenges, highlighting different reading profiles. Based on the findings reported in this chapter, we urge school teams to implement targeted interventions based on each student’s reading profile. Finally, this chapter showed that while the PM Benchmark may be a suitable reading assessment during the early years of schooling, the PAT-R lacked sensitivity in detecting reading challenges in older readers.