An oral versus a standard administration of a large-scale mathematics test

Students in Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 (N = 1,343) took part in a study to determine whether students with learning disabilities (LD) would benefit from having mathematics test items read aloud. Two 30-item alternate forms of a large-scale multiple-choice mathematics test were administered. One form was presented in standard format; the other was read aloud to students from a video monitor. Using linguistic features, 4 or 5 Difficult Reading items were selected from each form. The performance of students with LD on these items was compared to that of a randomly selected group of general education students. Analysis of variance showed mixed results. Elementary school students with LD tended to perform better when test items were read aloud; general education students at this level did not receive this benefit. No significant interactions were found at the middle school level. Results are discussed in relationship to previous studies.