Graduate Program

School Psychology

Degree Name

Specialist in School Psychology

Semester of Degree Completion

2007

Thesis Director

Christine McCormick

Thesis Committee Member

Ronan Bernas

Thesis Committee Member

Linda Leal

Abstract

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 placed federal mandates on education in which all children will be expected to read grade-level text by the 3rd grade in the academic year of 2013-2014. Risk factors that can be linked to interventions in order to reach the goals of NCLB were investigated. In this study, the risk factors of parental involvement (Reading Minute Index), parental literacy interaction style (Home Questionnaire), and Overactive and Underactive problem behaviors (ASCA composite scores) were analyzed in relation to the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills kindergarten spring benchmarks.

This study was conducted in order to: a) examine which risk factors most predict early literacy risk status in kindergarteners and b) compare the saliency of risk factors between kindergarteners scoring in the at-risk range on DIBELS spring benchmarks and their non-risk peers (meeting benchmark). Results revealed that parental literacy interaction style was the most predictive of early literacy risk status on DIBELS. This factor was followed by ASCA Overactive problem behaviors and ASCA Underactive problem behaviors. Significant differences were found between DIBELS' high-risk and non-risk groups along with DIBELS' some-risk and non-risk groups on parental literacy interaction style. Furthermore, significant differences were found between DIBELS' high-risk group and non-risk group among the risk factors of ASCA Overactivity and ASCA Underactivity.

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