Early Achievement in Reading

Abstract

Tmns article reports the results of tests of early reading abilities and analyzes the results in order to indicate those abilities which seem to be the more important in guiding the progress of young children in learning to read. One test of early abilities was the Gates Reading Readiness Tests. The other was the Wilson-Flemming Symbols Scales. The Metropolitan Achievement Tests in Reading, Primary Reading Test, was also used, in full with some of the groups and in part with others. Two schools participated. One was the Hunter College Elementary School, in which a group of kindergarten children was given the Symbols Scales in the spring of 1939. The next autumn the same children, then pupils in low-first grade, were given the Gates Reading Readiness Tests, and in December and January two forms of the Metropolitan test. The socio-economic status of the children of this school was much above average. The other school was a New York City public school located in an underprivileged section of the city. Twenty-three pupils in low-first grade and twenty in high-first grade were given the Gates Reading Readiness Tests in the autumn of 1940, and during the following winter the first four parts of the Metropolitan Achievement Tests in Reading, Primary Reading Test. Twenty-three children in the two grades of this school were also given the Symbols Scales. Correlations of scores to show the relations between the reading tests and the other measures were computed by use of the rank-order formula. The small number of cases makes the reliability of the statistical results somewhat uncertain. However, because of other reported data referred to below, the outcome of this study has comparative interest.