Page 6 | ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding
©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding | Page 7
)
In the first grade (graph on left), the top
students (shown in the upper right – toe – of
the graph), have Northwest Evaluation
Association RIT (Rasch Unit) scores in the
180-190 range. A RIT score is an estimation
of a student’s instructional level.
)
Notice average students reach those
same scores in third grade (lower left graph).
Low-end students who start first grade in
the bottom left (heel) are still struggling to
achieve 180-190 RIT scores/skills at the
beginning of fifth grade (lower right graph).
)
Reading growth can be accelerated and
when reading scores go up, researchers
show that math scores also increase 66 to
125 percent with no additional instructional
time in math.
In these graphs, each dot represents a student with their reading score shown on
the horizontal axis and math score on the vertical axis. The data shows high readers
tend to have high math scores and low readers have low math scores. Student
scores maintain the foot-like shape from first grade onward.
Predicting MATH Failure
Correlation
= .80
Correlation
= .77
Correlation
= .76
Predicting SCIENCE Failure
Your students’ reading and math scores also predict their science scores. When the 2012
science scores of 65 PISA (Programmer for International Student Assessment) countries are graphed
against the average of each countries’ reading and math scores, the dots form a tight linear
relationship, a correlation of .985.
3
You can quickly graph your own
students’ average reading and math
scores against their science scores.
Where do you predict the 40
percent of your own low readers/
low math students will score in
science in middle and high school?
Top 24 PISA
Countries
1
Shanghai-China
2
Singapore
3
Hong Kong-China
4
Korea
5
Chinese Taipei
6
Japan
7
Liechtenstein
8
Macao-China
9
Finland
10Canada
11Switzerland
12Estonia
13Poland
14Netherlands
15Belgium
16Ireland
17Germany
18Viet Nam
19Australia
20New Zealand
21France
22Austria
23Denmark
24United Kingdom
United States
3
www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf — downloaded 6/14/2014.
The PISA assesses the competencies of 15-year-olds in reading math and science.