Modeling the relations between reading skills and assessment methods in adults who struggle with foundational reading skills

The patterns of skills in adults who have difficulty with reading may be different from those of children, and thus applying and interpreting methods of measurement may be complex. The goal of this study was to examine the relations among reading skills in this population, by modeling specific reading skills and method of measurement simultaneously using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models of hypothesized skills and methods. This study examines the relational structure between skills common reading assessments are measuring in this group, as well as the effect of the method of measurement on assessing reading skills in this group, focusing on the following questions: How do reading assessment methods (speed, battery) and skills (silent reading, contextual reading, phonic decoding) in a selection of measures of reading performance relate to each other in a sample of adults, and what are the implications for test selection and interpretation for this population? Results indicate that modeling reading in this population is complicated as some tests do not generalize fully to an overall reading factor, and the relation of specific reading skills and methods of measurement may be complex. The analysis of the structure of this study’s selection of reading tests provides information about the relation between the tests themselves, and also about the performance of adult readers in these skill areas.