Age-related differences in speed of processing: unconfounding age and experience

Reliability and Relationship to Retention of Assessing an Acquisition Rate for Sight Words With Kindergarten Students

Teaching children too many words during a lesson reduces retention. The amount of new information a student can successfully rehearse and recall later is called acquisition rate (AR), which has been reliably measured with students in first, third, and fifth grades. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of assessing AR for sight words with kindergarten students. A total of 32 kindergarten students from five classrooms across two elementary schools participated in the study. AR was measured twice over a 2-week period, and 1-day retention was measured for the first AR. The AR data resulted in a 2-week delayed alternate form reliability of r = .83, and there was also a strong correlation between AR and number of words retained 1 day later. The limitations, implications, and considerations for the name of the construct being assessed are discussed.

Measuring Sight-Word Acquisition and Retention Rates with Curriculum-Based Assessment

Few studies have been published that have examined the psychometric properties of Gickling's model of curriculum-based assessment (CBA), even though this model is among the few educational assessment models that include both performance assessment and cognitive learning theory. The current study examined the delayed alternate-form reliability of measuring sight-word acquisition and retention rates using CBA with 91 students from grades 1, 3. and 5. Each student was twice taught a different group of words from the Esperanto International Language, with a 14-day retest interval. The total number of words acquired, number of words retained, and percentage of words retained were correlated between the two sessions. The reliability of the first two rates was above established minimum levels of adequacy for grades 3 and 5, but the retention rates expressed as a percentage were not.