Title

A Preliminary Investigation Of Second- And Fourth-Grade African American Students' Performance On The Gray Oral Reading Test-Fourth Edition

Keywords

African American English; African American students; Elementarygrade; Oral reading tests; Reading comprehension; Students

Abstract

PURPOSE: Research has established that African American (AA) children are lagging behind other children in their reading skills. A number of factors have been proposed to account for the literacy gap; however no single factor has entirely explained this disparity. This investigation examined the appropriateness of the Gray Oral Reading Test-Fourth Edition (GORT-4) for identifying the oral reading proficiency skills of African American English (AAE)-speaking children in the second and fourth grades by comparing their reading skills with their levels of dialect usage as measured by the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Screening Test (DELV-ST). METHOD: The DELV-ST and the GORT-4 were used to assess 33 typically developing AA students in second and fourth grades. The scores were analyzed to evaluate associations between the two measures. RESULTS: Results of the DELV-ST indicated that the majority of the participants were AAE-speaking children. The participants also scored below the mean for the normative sample on the GORT-4. A statistically significant correlation was found between the participants' DELV-ST scores (higher scores represent less variation from mainstream American English; lower scores represent more variation and higher AAE usage) and participants' performance on the GORT-4 comprehension subtest, as well as a significant correlation between their grade level and performance on the GORT-4, in particular between the rate subtest and grade. Findings are discussed in terms of using the GORT-4 with caution by professionals in determining the reading skills of AA children who speak AAE. There could be some value in using the GORT with AAE-speaking children even though they may score lower on it. Copyright © 2010 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.

Publication Date

4-1-2010

Publication Title

Topics in Language Disorders

Volume

30

Issue

2

Number of Pages

145-153

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0b013e3181e04056

Socpus ID

77952247780 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/77952247780

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