Predictive assessment of reading

Study 1 retrospectively analyzed neuropsychological and psychoeducational tests given to N=220 first graders, with follow-up assessments in third and eighth grade. Four predictor constructs were derived: (1) Phonemic Awareness, (2) Picture Vocabulary, (3) Rapid Naming, and (4) Single Word Reading. Together, these accounted for 88%, 76%, 69%, and 69% of the variance, respectively, in first, third, and eighth grade Woodcock Johnson Broad Reading and eighth grade Gates-MacGinitie. When Single Word Reading was excluded from the predictors, the remaining predictors still accounted for 71%, 65%, 61%, and 65% of variance in the respective outcomes. Secondary analyses of risk of low outcome showed sensitivities/specificities of 93.0/91.0, and 86.4/84.9, respectively, for predicting which students would be in the bottom 15% and 30% of actual first grade WJBR. Sensitivities/specificities were 84.8/83.3 and 80.2/81.3, respectively, for predicting the bottom 15% and 30% of actual third grade WJBR outcomes; eighth grade outcomes had sensitivities/specificities of 80.0/80.0 and 85.7/83.1, respectively, for the bottom 15% and 30% of actual eighth grade WJBR scores. Study 2 cross-validated the concurrent predictive validities in an N=500 geographically diverse sample of late kindergartners through third graders, whose ethnic and racial composition closely approximated the national early elementary school population. New tests of the same four predictor domains were used, together taking only 15 minutes to administer by teachers; the new Woodcock-Johnson III Broad Reading standard score was the concurrent criterion, whose testers were blind to the predictor results. This cross-validation showed 86% of the variance accounted for, using the same regression weights as used in Study 1. With these weights, sensitivity/specificity values for the 15% and 30% thresholds were, respectively, 91.3/88.0 and 94.1/89.1. These validities and accuracies are stronger than others reported for similar intervals in the literature.