An Exploration of the Heterogeneous Nature of Reading Comprehension Development in First Grade: The Impact of Word and Meaning Skills

This exploratory study builds upon extant reading development studies by identifying discrete groups based on reading comprehension trajectories across first grade. The main goal of this study was to enhance the field’s understanding of early reading comprehension development and its underlying subcomponent skills, with the intent of better understanding the development of comprehension in students who display risk for reading difficulties and disabilities. A sample of first-grade readers (N = 314) were assessed at three timepoints across the first-grade year. These data were utilized to derive empirical latent classes based on reading comprehension performance across the first-grade year. Reading subcomponent skill assessments (phonological awareness, word reading, decoding, linguistic comprehension, and reading fluency), measured in the fall of first grade, were compared across latent classes to examine how they related to growth across the first-grade year. Results suggest that there were four distinct latent classes with differential reading comprehension development, each of which could also be distinguished by the subskill assessments. These findings are presented within the context of the broader reading research base and implications for practice are discussed.