Assessing the Needs of Elementary School Students from Low Socioeconomic Environments Displaying Poor Performance in Reading

Author

Reynaldo Flores, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Noel Gray

Committee Member

Roslyn Doctorow

Committee Member

Kimberly Durham

Keywords

4th Grade, academic performance, at-risk students, educational needs, elementary education, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), fourth grade, grade 4, needs assessment, socioeconomics, socioeconomic status (SES), reading proficiency

Abstract

This dissertation was designed to provide current information on the low reading level of students in Grade 4 who are from families of low socioeconomic status (SES). While it was known that SES is crucial to student learning which gave rise to initiates to address the problem, low SES students in elementary school continue to struggle to read at grade level. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is used to measure performance index framework in reading along with mathematics, writing, science, and social studies to address and correct deficiencies. The data for the ESSA was drawn from the State of Texas Academic Assessment Readiness (STAAR). However, the results of the last four administration of the STAAR assessments, dating back from the 2023 School Year, show Grade 4 students continue to perform below grade level in reading.

The study tried to determine if a set of student-rated variables are playing a significant role in the reading level low SES students. The data for these variables will be archival and will be drawn from the STAAR assessment for the School Years 2018–2023. On collecting the data, the intent is to determine to what extent these set of variables are predictable of the reading level of students of low SES.

A multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data. This technique provides two key benefits; (a) prediction of values on the criterion variable and (b) a measure of the relative degree of each predictor variable contributes to the variance in the criterion variable. A preselected alpha level of 0.05 will be used to determine the level of significance of these variables.

NSUWorks Citation

Reynaldo Flores. 2024. Assessing the Needs of Elementary School Students from Low Socioeconomic Environments Displaying Poor Performance in Reading. Doctoral dissertation. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice. (678)
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/fse_etd/678.