Date of Award

2013

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

School Psychology

Abstract

In the current educational climate, school districts and states are being held accountable for the progress of all students. Students who speak another language at home and have limited English proficiency, known as English Language Learners (ELLs), continue to underperform when compared to English proficient peers. The purpose of the study was to determine whether a brief, standardized reading fluency probe (R-CBM) is an effective tool for measuring growth over time and identifying students at risk of failure of a state standards test, considering ELL status. Archival data was used with a sample of 1,056 students in fourth through sixth grades in a suburb of a large midwestern city with a linguistically diverse student body. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to determine growth models for all students and ELL students only. Predictors such as language proficiency and race/ethnicity were included in the model to determine whether they accounted for significant variance in scores or growth for ELLs. The predictive validity of fall and winter R-CBM was investigated with respect to a state standards test through correlations for ELLs and non-ELLs. Also, the diagnostic accuracy of R-CBM cut scores was investigated in relation to performance on the state test for both groups at each grade level. Results support the use of R-CBM as a tool to measure growth over time for ELL students in the intermediate grades and identify ELL students at risk of failure on state standards tests. Limitations of the current study and implications are discussed.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS