Investigating the Diagnostic Consistency and Incremental Validity Evidence of Curriculum-based Measurements of Oral...

Rate and comprehension are two components related to reading performance. The purpose of this study was to use diagnostic consistency and incremental validity to examine the unique contribution of three curriculum-based measures of reading comprehension (CBM-comprehension) compared to a curriculum-based measure of oral reading (CBM-R). An extant sample of fall 2016 screening data in a national assessment system were used for this investigation. The CBM-comprehension measures were related to oral recall, synthesis of main ideas, and free-response question-answering. Scores from the CBM-comprehension measures were associated with weak criterion-related validity to a measure of broad reading. In addition, diagnostic consistency analyses revealed poor overlap between CBM-comprehension and CBM-R score classifications based on at risk benchmarks. Incremental validity evidence replicated previous findings, demonstrating that the CBM-comprehension measures explain unique variation in broad reading scores even after controlling for performance on CBM-R. Implications for the usage of CBM-R and CBM-comprehension for screening are addressed.