Determining Success On The Kindergarten Developmental Reading Assessment and Texas Proficiency Reading Inventory Assessments

Abstract

Determining whether or not a child completes the kindergarten academic year successfully is an important issue in education. This study examined kindergarten success by using the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) and the kindergarten Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI).

This study looked at the DRA middle-of-year (MOY) and EOY assessments and the TPRI beginning-of-year (BOY) and end-of-year (EOY) assessments to determine if the student met mastery according to standards in Oak Independent School District (ISD). For this study, the primary question’s independent variable was attendance in prekindergarten in Oak ISD prior to attending kindergarten in Oak ISD. The secondary question’s independent variable was the gender of the student, and the dependent variables were DRA and TPRI results. A two-tailed t test was used for this study in order to examine how the different variables related to each other. The data for this study came from the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years’ DRA and TPRI assessments.

Findings from the study included the following: There was a statistical significant increase in means for both the students who attended and who did not attend pre-kindergarten in Oak ISD on both the DRA and TPRI assessments according to the two-tailed t-test. The difference in means indicates that the scores for students who attended pre-kindergarten in Oak ISD were higher on the TPRI and lower on the DRA for the students who did not attend pre-kindergarten in Oak ISD. There was also a statistical significant increase in means for both the male and female students who attended pre-kindergarten in Oak ISD on both the DRA and TPRI assessments according to the two-tailed t-test. The difference in means indicates that the scores of male students who attended pre-kindergarten in Oak ISD was higher on both the TPRI and the DRA than for the female students who also attended pre-kindergarten in Oak ISD.