Doctor of Education / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / James Teagarden / This study investigated the effectiveness of an early literacy program for first grade students classified as at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, who were nonresponsive to previous schoolwide interventions, and who performed in the bottom one-third of their class on a standardized reading assessment. This study, which consisted of a multiple-probe across intervention groups experimental design aimed to produce literacy and behavior results previously obtained by other well-known researchers. Results indicated growth in oral reading fluency for all five participants, in nonsense word fluency for four out of the five participants, and a decreased display of total disruptive behaviors for all. Findings reaffirm outcomes obtained in previous investigations; specifically, improved early literacy skills are concomitant with ongoing decreases in disruptive classroom behavior. Limitations are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency Scores in the fall of first grade as a predictor of SAT-10 results. A comparison of boys and girls, three ethnic groups (Caucasian, Hispanic, African-American), and three different reading risk groups were examined using multiple regression analyses. Analysis of data from a total of 27,000 participants from a cohort of Reading First schools in 2003/2004 confirmed Nonsense Word Fluency scores in the fall of first grade to be a significant predictor of the SAT-10 reading scores in the spring. Differences found between and within groups were determined very small when Cohen's effect size was calculated. These results support for the use of Nonsense Word Fluency as a valid and useful early literacy assessment tool for determining which children likely need early additional reading instructional support in order to be successful readers.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the effects, if any, of a supplemental phonics curriculum, Saxon Phonics, on the reading achievement of first-grade students in one mountain-west, semirural, school district. The design was casual-comparative and ex post facto, and answered the questions: (1) Do students taught using a traditional basal program and students taught using both the traditional basal program and a supplemental phonics program (control vs. treatment) differ on selected end-of-year reading achievement scores (i.e., portions of the DIBELS Next assessment—nonsense word fluency [NWF], oral reading fluency [ORF], and accuracy [ACC])? (2) do any possible interactions among selected variables (i.e., instructional program, gender, and beginning-of-year reading level) exist related to performance differences on end-of-year reading achievement scores among students receiving reading instruction with or without a supplemental phonics program? The independent variables were the instructional program Saxon Phonics, a traditional/basal reading curriculum and the reading levels of low, medium, and high. The dependent variables were oral reading fluency, accuracy and nonsense word fluency, measured by the DIBELS Next assessment. The 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 DIBELS Next data were collected from the school district database upon approval from the Institutional Review Board in January of 2017. A mixed effects model was utilized to explore the relationship between use of the selected supplemental phonics curriculum and selected reading achievement scores of first-grade students. Results revealed that there was no significant difference between the control and treatment groups, though there was a statistically significant improvement of low readers in the treatment group over the control group.

xviii, 193 p. / Learning to read and successfully decode words is complex, requiring the integration of critical component skills such as phonological awareness, alphabetic understanding, and phonological recoding. As foundational skills required for reading with automaticity, researchers recommend that explicit instruction of these skills begin early, particularly for students at risk. One commonly used measure to examine students' alphabetic understanding and phonological recoding skills is DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), a pseudo-word reading measure composed of vowel-consonant and consonant-vowel-consonant words. One purpose of this study was to examine the effects of school-level and individual student-level predictors on students' overall performance on NWF in the spring of grade 1 as evidenced by their total Correct Letter Sounds (CLS) and Words Read as Whole Units Correctly (WRWUC) scores. A series of hierarchical linear models were estimated to investigate the contributions of three student-level predictors (English Learner status, fall of grade 1 Phoneme Segmentation Fluency raw scores, and fall of grade 1 NWF scores) and two school-level predictors (percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch and percentage of incoming at-risk kindergarteners) in explaining the variance observed in NWF scores A second purpose was to estimate the item difficulties of the first 20 pseudo-words for comparability of difficulty, controlling for student-level covariates. A series of hierarchical generalized linear models were estimated to investigate the contribution of student-level predictors while controlling for school effects. Participants were 1,111 first grade students enrolled in 14 elementary schools participating in the Oregon Reading First initiative. Results indicated that fall of grade 1 NWF raw and quadratic scores were the only statistically significant student-level predictors of CLS and WRWUC scores in the fully specified Level 1 model. The relation between school-level predictors and spring of grade 1 NWF performance complicated interpretation, but both school-level predictors were also significant. Additionally, results of the item difficulty estimates reveal significant student-level effects on item difficulties, providing evidence that item parameters are not equal for the first 20 pseudo-words on DIBELS NWF. The effects were particularly strong for English Learners. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed. / Committee in charge: Dr. Paul Yovanoff, Chair; Dr. Gerald Tindal, Member; Dr. Akihito Kamata, Member; Dr. Elizabeth Harn, Outside Member

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xiii, 137 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Research suggests that development of the alphabetic principle is a critical factor in learning to recognize words and becoming a successful reader. The alphabetic principle encompasses both the understanding that relationships exist between letters and sounds and the application of these relationships to reading words. This study investigated the degree to which different measures of the alphabetic principle were predictive of later reading development. These measures were examined in the context of Ehri's phase theory of sight word development to investigate how different behaviors associated with the alphabetic principle fit within a developmental framework. Two cohorts of students (109 kindergarteners, 212 first graders) participated in this study from spring of 2007 until late fall of 2008 (58 second graders, 121 third graders). The predictive powers of single and combined measures of the alphabetic principle were analyzed using sequential regression. Results indicated that each measure explained significant between-student variation in performance on measures of word reading fluency, oral reading fluency (ORF), vocabulary, and reading comprehension. A measure of letter-sounds embedded in nonsense words appeared to have more utility for the prediction of reading outcomes than a measure of letter-sounds presented in isolation. Additionally, including a measure of nonsense words with a measure of letter-sounds embedded in nonsense words increased the predictive power of the model over and above the predictive power of letter sounds alone. Growth on ORF served as an additional criterion for the purpose of investigating the methodology of measuring growth. Two conceptualizations of growth were explored: raw score change over time and individual rates of growth over time (slope). Correlations and sequential regression were used to evaluate the relationship between raw score change and measures of the alphabetic principle. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used to model individual slopes on Lexile measures of ORF (LORF). In general, raw score change appeared largely unrelated to measures of the alphabetic principle. HLM analyses revealed that individual differences in slope on LORF were minimal and not very reliable, making the prediction of these differences difficult. Recommendations for future research and implications for practice are discussed. / Committee in charge: Roland Good, Chairperson, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Kenneth Merrell, Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Leanne Ketterlin Geller, Member, Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership; Jean Stockard, Outside Member, Planning Public Policy and Management

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