Relations among reading skills and sub-skills and text-level reading proficiency in developing readers

Abstract

Despite the recent attention to text reading fluency, few studies have studied the construct of oral reading rate and accuracy in connected text in a model that simultaneously examines many of the important variables in a multi-leveled fashion with young readers. Using Structural Equation Modeling, this study examined the measurement and structural relations of the rate and accuracy of variables important in early reading: phonemic blending, letter sounds, phonograms, decoding, single-word reading, reading comprehension, and text reading as well as reading comprehension among second grade readers. The effects from phonemic blending fluency and letter sound fluency to decoding were completely mediated by phonogram fluency, decoding fluency, single-word reading fluency, and reading comprehension had direct effects on the text reading fluency of the second grade students. Understanding the relationship among the many component skills of readers early in their reading development is important because a deficiency in any of the component skills has the potential to affect the development of other skills and, ultimately, the development of the child as a proficient reader.