Reading and writing assessment scales: preliminary reliability evidences.

Abstract

Background: Reliability of Reading and Writing Assessment Instruments.

Aim: To investigate the reliability of two scales created to evaluate both reading and writing of children with ages between 8:0 and 11:11 years.

Method: Two scales were created: a reading scale, composed of 12 testing items organized into four competency fields (letter knowledge and phonographemic relation, decoding of isolated items, reading fluency, reading comprehension), and a writing scale, with five items organized into three fields (letter writing and graphophonemic relation, codification of isolated items, writing construction). One hundred students (64 girls) from Public Schools, with ages raging between 8:0 and 11:11 years, were selected. Twenty students (12 girls) participated in the applicability study, resulting in the study version of the Scales. These scales were later applied to the remaining 80 students (52 girls). The obtained responses were assessed and computed for score assignment: item scores, competence field score (CFS) and raw scale score (RSS). Data were submitted to statistical analysis: the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated and correlations between items (Pearson's correlation coefficient) were verified. A significance level of 0.05 was used.

Results: a = 0.866 and a = 0.461 were obtained for the Reading and Writing Scales, respectively. Correlations between the items were observed, ranging from weak to strong, and confirmed the alpha values.

Conclusion: The Reading Scale was proven reliable, achieving acceptable levels for diagnostic instruments; the Writing Scale did not present an acceptable reliability level to measure the performance of the tested children.