Shades of Struggle: Heterogeneity among Urban Adolescent Struggling Comprehenders

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Shades of Struggle Heterogeneity among Urban
Adolescent Struggling Comprehenders

• Michael J. Kieffer
  Gina Biancarosa
• Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Stanford University
• Joanna A. Christodoulou
• Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez
• Catherine E. Snow
• Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Why should teachers care about heterogeneity?

• Adolescent readers are over-tested, but
  under-diagnosed
• Identifying sources of difficulties tells
  teachers what to teach, not just who to teach

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Why should researchers investigate heterogeneity?

• Recent studies do not concur on the prevalence,
  heterogeneity, or stability of reading
  difficulties after third grade
• (Buly Valencia, 2003 Hock et al., 2007 Leach,
  Scarborough, Rescorla, 2003 Lesaux, Lipka,
  Siegel, 2006 Share Silva, 1986 Shaywitz et
  al., 1992 Wright, Fields, Newman, 1996)

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Research Context

• Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP)
  pilot site
• Mystic School Urban K-8 school in the Northeast
  U.S.
• 90.7 Latino
• 91 Low income
• 78.7 Language Minority
• 45.9 Limited English Proficient
• 8.4 Special Ed
• Population raises questions about language
  minority learners and urban context

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Study Aims

• Explore the diversity and prevalence of
  instructional profiles among struggling
  comprehenders in grades 5-8 in a predominately
  Latino urban school
• Investigate to what extent profiles change over
  time

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Research Design

• Assessed all 5th-8th grade students in mainstream
  instruction

Descriptives to add
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Research Design

• Assessed all 5th-8th grade students in mainstream
  instruction
• Inclusion in Struggling Comprehenders sample
• lt 35th percentile rank in reading comprehension
  on national norms

Descriptives to add
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Research Design

• Assessed all 5th-8th grade students in mainstream
  instruction
• Inclusion in Struggling Comprehenders sample
• lt 35th percentile rank in reading comprehension
  on national norms

Descriptives to add
9
Measures

• Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic
  Evaluation (GRADE)
• Reading Comprehension (Passage Sentence
  Comprehension)
• Reading Vocabulary
• Listening Comprehension
• Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE)
• Sight Word Reading Efficiency
• Phonemic Decoding Efficiency
• Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
  Oral Reading Fluency (DIBELS)
• Narrative Expository Passage Fluency
• Narrative Expository Passage Accuracy

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Latent Class Analysis

• Literacy measures modeled as continuous
  indicators of profile
• Some measures allowed to correlate within class
• BLRT BIC used to determine of classes
• (Nylund, Asparouhov, Muthén, 2006)

Reader Profile (c)
DIBELs Narrative Accuracy
DIBELs Narrative Rate
DIBELs Expository Accuracy
DIBELs Expository Rate
TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency
TOWRE Phonemic Efficiency
Vocabulary
Listening Comp
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Year 1 Automatic Word Callers
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Year 1 Fast Word Callers
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Year 1 Slow Readers
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Year 1 Prevalence
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Year 1 Trends across Profiles
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Year 2 Automatic Word Callers
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Year 2 Fast Word Callers
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Year 2 Slow Word Callers
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Year 2 Potential RD
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Year 2 Prevalence
Year 2
Year 1
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Robust Finding Word Callers
Year 2
Year 1
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Robust Finding Common Trends
Year 2
Year 1
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Longitudinal Findings
(n 122)
Year 2
Year 1
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Longitudinal Findings
(n 122)
Year 2
Year 1
25
Longitudinal Findings
(n 122)
Year 2
Year 1
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Longitudinal Findings
(n 122)
Year 2
Year 1
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Longitudinal Findings
(n 122)
Year 2
Year 1
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Implications for Researchers

• Profiles are dynamic over time
• Measurement Error
• Cohort Effects
• Developmental Effects
• Population and context matter
• Replication of descriptive work is needed
• Multiple measures across time are essential

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Implications for Teachers

• Very few students need intensive instruction in
  the code
• A minority of students need targeted intervention
  in fluency
• Vocabulary is the most promising leverage point
  for whole-class instruction

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Thank you

• The students, faculty, and families of the Mystic
  School
• Claire White
• Sarah Meacham
• Joshua Lawrence
• Jacy Ippolito
• Suzanne Donovan
• The Spencer Foundation
• The William Flora
• Hewlett Foundation

• Laura Potenski
• Beth Faller
• Wing Cheung
• Paola Ucceli
• Kathleen Spencer
• Christina Dobbs
• Anna Tirovolas
• Maja Lang

For more information, email michael_kieffer_at_gse.ha
rvard.edu
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Appendices
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Variability in Adolescent Literacy Research

• Buly Valencia, 2003 Majority of students with
  poor performance had difficulty with fluency and
  comprehension
• Leach et al., 2003 Majority of students
  identified with reading deficits presented with
  problems in reading comprehension, with 2/3 of
  these students also showing word level reading
  difficulties
• Leach et al., 2003 Almost half of the students
  identified in 4th and 5th grade were
  late-emerging poor readers
• Hock et al., 2007 63 of struggling readers in
  8th 9th grade showed word-level difficulties
  and comprehension difficulties

• Do adolescent readers struggle at the
• Word level?
• Comprehension level?
• Fluency level?
• More than one?

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Relevance to ELLs in urban schools

• Paucity of research
• (August Shanahan, 2006)
• Heterogeneity and late-emerging difficulties
  similar to native speakers
• (Lesaux, Lipka, Siegel, 2006)
• Perhaps more likely to be word callers
• (Buly Valencia, 2003)

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Latent Class Analysis
Latent Categorical Variable for unobserved group
membership
Reader Profile (c)
Observed Continuous Indicators
DIBELs Narrative Accuracy
DIBELs Narrative Rate
DIBELs Expository Accuracy
DIBELs Expository Rate
TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency
TOWRE Phonemic Efficiency
Vocabulary
Listening Comp
Measures allowed to covary within class
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Goodness of Fit Stats
36
Goodness of Fit Stats
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Other Struggling Readers

• Okay in Reading Comprehension, but struggling
  with word reading

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Longitudinal Findings by Grade
Year 2
(n 122)
Year 1