Examining the Unique and Cumulative Effects of Risk Factors on Literacy Growth for Students From Grades 1-3

• In Event: How the Hardening of the Class Stratification System Affects At-Risk Children and Literacy Development

Abstract

The development of reading skills from 0-8 years old provides a foundation for future educational success. Children without well-developed reading skills by third grade are at risk for continued academic underperformance and eventual school dropout. This is particularly so among children from low-income households. For these children, poverty is a complex experience associated with diverse threats to development. Birth risks, homelessness, and maltreatment occur at markedly higher rates for children in poverty. Children experiencing these risks evidence lower reading achievement. Few studies have accounted for the unique and combined influences of these individual risk factors on children’s reading achievement over time. Past research has investigated these risks in isolation and cross-sectionally, but have not studied the co-occurrence among these risks or their differential influence across time.
This study investigated the unique and cumulative relations of risk factors on reading growth from 1-3 grade. This was accomplished using integrated data from a large urban school district and municipal agencies for a cohort of approximately 11,000 students from birth-to-third grade. Results showed that children experiencing early risks including low maternal education, maltreatment, lead exposure, birth risks, and homelessness were behind their peers in reading ability in first grade, and they were unable to catch up to their peers by the end of third grade. Cumulative risk was also deleterious to reading growth. These findings stress a need to understand early risk experiences prior to school entry to have a clearer picture of their influence on the development of critical early reading skills.

Authors

• John Fantuzzo, University of Pennsylvania

• Whitney A. LeBoeuf, University of Pennsylvania

• Benjamin Brumley, University of Pennsylvania