title: Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who Are at Risk for Reading Problems.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate a universal screening battery for reading that is appropriate for older elementary students in a response to intervention model. Multiple measures of reading and reading correlates were administered to 230 fourth-grade children. Teachers rated children's reading skills, academic competence, and attention. Children were classified as not-at-risk or at-risk readers based on a three-factor model reflecting reading comprehension, word recognition/decoding, and word fluency. Predictors of reading status included group-administered tests of reading comprehension, silent word reading fluency, and teacher ratings of reading problems. Inclusion of individually administered tests and growth estimates did not add substantial variance. The receiver-operator characteristic curve analysis yielded an area under the curve index of 0.90, suggesting this model may both accurately and efficiently screen older elementary students with reading problems.
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland.
authors.forename: Deborah L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Speece
authors.forename: Kristen D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Ritchey
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Silverman
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schatschneider
authors.forename: Caroline Y
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: Katryna N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Andrusik