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

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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.

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Acknowledgments

The work presented in this article was supported by Grant H324N040039 from the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. This article does not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of this funding agency and no official endorsement should be inferred. We are grateful for the generous assistance of Richard K. Wagner and Robert Abbott in this project and the invaluable comments of Joseph Jenkins and anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft. We also appreciate Laura Snyder, Jennifer Wolvin, Jennifer Tow, Anna Ylakotola, Christan Grygas, Yi Pan, Patricia Shubrick, and Brian Mincey for their work collecting the data in this study. We especially thank the children, parents, teachers, and principals in the Leon County School District and Florida State University School who made this research possible.

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Correspondence to Roxanne F. Hudson.

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Hudson, R.F., Torgesen, J.K., Lane, H.B. et al. Relations among reading skills and sub-skills and text-level reading proficiency in developing readers. Read Writ 25, 483–507 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-010-9283-6

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