2007 - The Ecology of Early Reading Development for Children in Poverty

Attribution: Kainz, Kirsten, & Vernon-Feagans, Lynne
Researchers: Kirsten KainzLynne Vernon-Feagans
University Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Email: kirsten.kainz@unc.edu; lynnevf@email.unc.edu
Research Question:
Investigated reading development from kindergarten to third grade for economically disadvantaged children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: The Elementary School Journal
Journal Entry: Vol. 107, No. 5, pp. 407-427
Year: 2007
Findings:
  • Significant model parameters and effect sizes indicated that child and family characteristics were more predictive of initial reading skills than of reading development over time. Minority segregation in elementary schools was associated with lower student reading performance after accounting for child and family background, classroom instruction, and school-level poverty.
  • Children who attended full-day kindergarten evidenced enhanced reading performance at the end of kindergarten only.
  • Children attending kindergarten classrooms with higher levels of comprehensive literacy instruction demonstrated higher performance in reading at the end of kindergarten.
  • Minority segregation significantly accounted for children’s reading performance at the end of kindergarten, first, and third grades. The reading performance of children attending minority segregated schools was constrained by 1.23, 2.43 and 5.02 points at the end of kindergarten, first, and third grades, respectively, relative to peers attending nonsegregated schools after accounting for child, family, and classroom variables and children’s predicted reading trajectories.
  • Children attending classrooms with higher percentages of students reading below grade level under-perform in reading on par with the benefits provided by comprehensive literacy instruction.
Keywords: CurriculumEnglishPovertyReadingSESRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Latent Curve Models Sampling Frame:Economically disadvantaged children
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: ClassroomSchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • 1,913 economically disadvantaged children who
    • 1) entered public kindergarten for the first time in 1998,
    • 2) progressed to third grade in the same school by 2002,
    • 3) lived in families with incomes below 200% of the poverty threshold in 1998,
    • 4) did not have an individual education plan on record at school in kindergarten, and
    • 5) performed their assessment in English.
  • Use the ECLS-K database
  • Data comes from child, parent, teacher and school administrator during the school years 1998-1999, 1999-2000 and 2001-2002.
  • DV: Reading IRT scales
  • IV: Child’s variables (gender, race and age), family variables (children’s primary caregiver, family literacy), classroom variables (full day, percent low readers at kindergarten, comprehensive literacy at kindergarten, percent low readers at grade 1, comprehensive literacy grade at grade 1, percent low readers at grade 3, comprehensive literacy at grade 3), school variables (suburban location, economic segregation, minority segregation).
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts