A Preliminary Investigation of Second- and Fourth-Grade African American Students' Performance on the Gray Oral Reading Test-Fourth Edition

Purpose: Research has established that African American (AA) children are lagging behind other children in their reading skills. A number of factors have been proposed to account for the literacy gap; however no single factor has entirely explained this disparity. This investigation examined the appropriateness of the Gray Oral Reading Test-Fourth Edition (GORT-4) for identifying the oral reading proficiency skills of African American English (AAE)-speaking children in the second and fourth grades by comparing their reading skills with their levels of dialect usage as measured by the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Screening Test (DELV-ST). Method: The DELV-ST and the GORT-4 were used to assess 33 typically developing AA students in second and fourth grades. The scores were analyzed to evaluate associations between the two measures. Results: Results of the DELV-ST indicated that the majority of the participants were AAE-speaking children. The participants also scored below the mean for the normative sample on the GORT-4. A statistically significant correlation was found between the participants' DELV-ST scores (higher scores represent less variation from mainstream American English; lower scores represent more variation and higher AAE usage) and participants' performance on the GORT-4 comprehension subtest, as well as a significant correlation between their grade level and performance on the GORT-4, in particular between the rate subtest and grade. Findings are discussed in terms of using the GORT-4 with caution by professionals in determining the reading skills of AA children who speak AAE. There could be some value in using the GORT with AAE-speaking children even though they may score lower on it.