Predicting reading achievement in the first year of schooling: A comparison of readiness tests and instructional programs

Data from four reading-related tests, including a measure of knowledge about books and print conventions, and two demographic variables, obtained at the end of the first year of schooling, were used to predict a range of students' word and discourse reading achievement at the conclusion of that year. Students were enrolled in a reading program that emphasized either the subskills involved in breaking the reading code or the more holistic gaining of meaning from print. The results indicated that a measure of knowledge about books and print conventions is strongly related to end-of-year reading achievement, but that, over and above the other more traditional measures, it is a significant predictor of only one type of comprehension - that involving the inferential linking of two pieces of information separated in the text. Students in a subskills-emphasis program outperformed those in a meaning-emphasis program on tests of word knowledge but not of comprehension of discourse.