An Evaluation of the Utility of Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement as Progress Monitoring Tools and Predictors of Comprehension

Many American students struggle with reading, particularly in the area of comprehension. As such, early identification of reading difficulties, use of evidenced-based interventions, and monitoring of student reading progress over time is essential. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is a technically adequate, efficient tool whose features and design make it a good candidate for early identification and progress monitoring purposes, especially within a response to intervention framework. However, there is still some uncertainty regarding the utility of reading CBM as progress monitoring tools. Specifically, the literature has suggested that variability in the difficulty of CBM materials may influence how well these tools measure student growth over time. The present study aimed to reduce CBM variability by using field-testing and rank-ordering of performance means to create two equivalent second-grade reading CBM passage sets. These sets were derived from larger pools of extant, commercially-available passage sets. One passage set included oral reading fluency and story recall tasks. The second passage set was comprised of Maze tasks. These passage sets were then used to monitor progress in second-grade students who were at-risk for reading problems. Scores from each type of task were also used to determine which was the best predictor of student performance in reading comprehension. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze student growth on CBM measures, as well as predict reading comprehension. Results indicated that only Maze tasks were sensitive to individual student growth over the study, and were the strongest predictors of reading comprehension in this sample compared to oral reading fluency and recall. Implications, limitations, and future directions are also discussed