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The School Readiness Curriculum Based Measurement System (SR-CBM) is intended to help address the pressing need for assessment tools that teachers can use to efficiently identify children’s strengths and weaknesses in English and Spanish, monitor students’ learning, and inform instruction. This project is creating research-based progress monitoring tools for both English-speaking children and Spanishspeaking children aged 3 to 6 years. SRCBM assess vocabulary, names of letters, sounds associated with letters and letter combinations, phonological awareness, mathematics, and science. Many children, especially those from ethnic and language minority groups, lag behind in development of these critical school readiness skills, which places them at risk for academic failure. SRCBM includes brief parallel English tests and brief parallel Spanish tests of each school readiness domain. These short forms are designed for educators to use for universal screening, benchmark testing, and progress monitoring. Expanded English and Spanish versions are designed for those with advanced assessment training, e.g., evaluators, diagnosticians, psychologists, and researchers, who engage in program evaluation, diagnosis, and educational research.

This funding examines how word definitions, contextual support, and cognate status affect 4th grade Spanish speaking English learners’ (EL) understanding of unfamiliar words in text. The inclusion of monolingual and bilingual dictionary definitions as a support for independent word learning is a ubiquitous practice in EL instruction, yet, the field lacks experimental work that isolates and tests the effect of dictionary definitions on EL vocabulary learning. Research on effective vocabulary instruction for ELs has typically relied on interventions that include multiple teaching strategies, each considered exemplary of best practice, but that lack evidence of their unique contribution to EL vocabulary learning. The value of definitions as supports for independent learning has been brought into question in research with monolingual English speakers. The bulk of this work suggests that definitions are mostly ineffective in promoting independent learning of word meanings. However, a metaanalysis on the value of testing accommodations for ELs indicates that provision of an English dictionary is a form of
accommodation that is effective in boosting ELs’ reading comprehension performance in testing situations. The same metaanalysis found that the estimates of the effect of providing
a Spanish dictionary varied considerably across studies, suggesting that some students benefited more from this practice than others. The widespread use of dictionary definitions in EL instruction coupled with the inconsistent evidence regarding their utility to ELs and English monolinguals, compel us to study how ELs’ use definitions to aid their understanding of unfamiliar words in text. Thus, we study the extent to which Spanish-speaking ELs benefit from English and Spanish definitions during independent learning situations and how ability to use definitions to understand English text interacts with other potential sources of information about word meaning, namely sentence context and cognate status.

PI: Mario Carlo, PhD
Co-PI: Jason Anthony, PhD
Funder: U.S. Department of Education

Anthony, J. L., Chen, Y. J., Williams, J. M., Cen, W., & Erazo, N. A. (2020). U.S. children’s understanding of the English alphabet: Its acquisition, conceptualization, and measurement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1-15

Neumann MM, Anthony JL, Erazo NA and Neumann DL (2019) Assessment and Technology: Mapping Future Directions in the Early Childhood Classroom. Front. Educ. 4:116.

Foster, M., Anthony, J. L., Zucker, T. A., & Branum-Martin, L. (2018). Prediction of English and Spanish kindergarten mathematics from English and Spanish cognitive and linguistic abilities in Hispanic dual language learners. Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Foster, M. E., Anthony, J. L., Clements, D. H., Sarama, J. H., & Williams, J. M. (2018). Hispanic dual language learning kindergarten students’ response to a numeracy intervention: A randomized control trial. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 43, 83-95.

Piasta, S. B., Farley, K. S., Phillips, B. M., Anthony, J. L., & Bowles, R. P. (2017). Assessment of Young Children’s Letter-Sound Knowledge: Initial Validity Evidence for Letter Sound Short Forms. Assessment for Effective Intervention.

Anthony, J. L. (2016). For which children of economic disadvantage and in which instructional contexts does Earobics Step 1 improve literacy? Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 9, 54-76.

Foster, M. E., Anthony, J. L., Clements, D. H., Sarama, J. H., & Williams, J. M. (2016). Improving mathematics learning of kindergarten students through computer assisted instruction. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 47(3), 206-232.

Piasta, S. B., Phillips, B. M., Williams, J. M., Bowles, R. P., & Anthony, J. L. (2016). Measuring young children’s alphabet knowledge: Development and validation of brief letter-sound knowledge assessments. Elementary School Journal, 116, 523-548.

Foster, M., Anthony, J. L., Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. H. (2015). Processes in the mathematical development of kindergarten children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56-73. 140, 56-73.

Anthony, J. L., Dunkelberger, M., & Aghara, R. (2014). Development and validation of a brief assessment of preschoolers’ articulation: The Houston Sentence Repetition Test of Articulation. Communication Disorders, Deaf Studies & Hearing Aids, 2, 120. 2:4.

Anthony, J. L., Davis, C., Williams, J. M., & Anthony, T. I. (2014). Preschoolers’ oral language abilities: A multilevel examination of dimensionality. Learning and Individual Differences, 35, 56-61.

Anthony, J. L., Williams, J. M., Zhang, Z., Landry, S. H., Dunkelberger, M. J. (2014). Experimental Evaluation of the Value Added by Raising a Reader and Supplemental Parent Training in Shared Reading. Early Education and Development, 25, 493-514.

Landry, S. H., Assel, M. A., Anthony, J. L., & Swank, P. R. (2013). Development of a Universal Screening and Progress Monitoring Tool and Its Applicability for Use in Response to Intervention. In V. Buysse & E. S. Peisner-Feinberg (Eds), Handbook of Response to Intervention in Early Childhood. (pp. 155-168). Baltimore, Maryland: Paul H. Brookes.

Mellard, D. F., Anthony, J. L., & Woods, K (2012). Understanding oral reading fluency among adults with low literacy: Dominance analysis of contributing component skills. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 25, 1345-1364.

Phillips, B., Piasta, S., Anthony, J. L., & Lonigan, C. J. (2012). IRTs of ABCs. Journal of School Psychology, 50, 461-481.

Williams, J. M., Landry, S. H, Anthony, J. L., & Swank, P. R.. (2012). An empirically based statewide system for identifying quality pre-kindergarten programs. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 20, 1-33.

Anthony, J. L., Williams, J. M., Duran, L., Gillam, S., Liang, L., Aghara, R., Swank, P., Assel, M., & Landry, S. (2011). Spanish phonological awareness: Dimensionality and sequence of development during the preschool and kindergarten years. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103, 857-876.

Anthony, J. L., Greenblatt Aghara, R., Dunkelberger, M. J., Anthony, T. I., Williams, J. M., & Zhang, Z., (2011). What factors place children with speech sound disorders at risk for reading problems? American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 20, 146- 160. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360(2011/10-0053)

Anthony, J. L., Aghara, R. G., Solari, E. J., Dunkelberger, M. J., Williams, J. M., & Liang, L. (2011). Quantifying phonological representation abilities in Spanish speaking preschool children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 19-49.

Landry, S., Swank, P., Anthony, J. L., & Assel, M. (2011). An Experimental Study Evaluating Professional Development Activities within a State Funded Pre- Kindergarten Program. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 24, 971-1010.

Anthony, J. L., Williams, J. M., Aghara, R., Dunkelberger, M., Novak, B., & Mukherjee, A. D. (2010). Assessment of individual differences in phonological representation. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 23, 969-994.