Modeling Reading Growth in Grades 3 to 5 With an Alternate Assessment

Abstract

Modeling growth for students with significant cognitive disabilities (SWSCD) is difficult due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, missing data, test scaling, group heterogeneity, and small sample sizes. These challenges may account for the paucity of previous research exploring the academic growth of SWSCD. Our study represents a unique context in which a reading assessment, calibrated to a common scale, was administered statewide to students in consecutive years across Grades 3 to 5. We used a nonlinear latent growth curve pattern-mixture model to estimate students’ achievement and growth while accounting for patterns of missing data. While we observed significant intercept differences across disability subgroups, there were no significant slope differences. Incorporating missing data patterns into our models improved model fit. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.