HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION OF READING SUBSKILLS: STATISTICAL APPROACHES

Abstract. This article describes a number of alternate methodological solutions to the problem of isolating reading subskills and establishing the nature of their hierarchical organization. The authors briefly review and evaluate Stepwise Multiple Regression, Factor Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Scaling Methods, Analysis of Variance and Transfer Designs, as potential tools in research on the hierarchical organization of reading subskills. With the exception of transfer-type experi-mental designs, none of the approaches seems satisfactory, the authors conclude. Two basic premises pervade most current theorizing and modeling efforts in the area of beginning reading. The first is that reading is a highly complex skill which depends upon a series of specific subskills; the second is that the subskills are interdependent or hierarchically organized. Whereas a fair degree of consensus exists about both of these premises, there is little consensus about either what the essential subskills are or what the nature of the hierarchical organization is. Educational practitioners and those engaged in the development of reading programs (Otto, 1970) tend to isolate and define subskills empirically, or on th