The Accuracy of U.S. Middle School Teachers’ Judgment of Student Reading Abilities

Abstract

Teacher judgments of students’ reading abilities in the elementary grades have been researched extensively, but less is known about how middle school teachers judge their students’ word reading, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills. Such information could be useful when determining which students and reading components would be reasonable instructional priorities. Thus, the present study explored U.S. teachers’ accuracy at predicting the performance of students in Grades 6–8 on standardized measures of reading abilities. The multilevel analytic models accounted for the nesting of students (n = 97) within teacher raters (n = 12) at three middle schools in one school district. Results indicated that the teachers’ ratings of overall ability and their beliefs about the specific skills with which their students struggled were poor predictors of actual student performance. Although the small sample of teachers from one district in one country limits the generalizability of the results, the findings suggest that some middle school teachers’ judgments could misidentify students at potential risk for reading difficulties or misalign instruction with particular skill areas of need. The discussion addresses the importance of making efficient but accurate decisions about screening students for reading intervention and planning differentiated or targeted intervention.