Com ares the effectiveness of the Gatea-MacCinitie Readiness Skills Test (G-hf) and Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) for redicting reading achievement in grade one and studies whether either test digrentially predicts reading in an i.t.a. ap roach cr a t.o. sight approach. Subjects in grade one were administered t i e G-M, a measure of intelligence, and the ITPA at the beginning of the school year and the Lee-Clark Reading Tests at the end of the year. Subjects were learning to read in two approaches to reading 4 . t . a and t.0. sight-oriented approach. Relationships between the G-M, I&, ITPA, and reading were analyzed using Pearson-Product Moment Correlations, Partial Correlations with intelligence controlled, and Stepwise Regression Analyses. The G-M was found to be a better predictor of reading than the ITPA for both i.t.a. and t.0. groups. The relative importance of specific subtests waa found to depend on the factors of reading groups and/or sex. Future research may find a combination of available reading readinesv tests to be most predictive of reading.
Research in reading has suggested that all approaches can be effective in teaching reading skills to the majority of children (Bond & Dykstra, 1967). This same research, however, has also indicated that failures occur in all reading Ijro- grams. These findings point out the need for research to determine if certain perceptual and/or linguistic skills are more important for learning to read in different reading approaches. For example, is auditory discrimination an equally important skill for learning to read in an approach emphasizing decoding skills as in a more sight-oriented approach? Such research would help educators to make decisions concerning which approach is better for individual children and subsequently reduce reading failure.
Extensive reviews of the ITPA are reported elsewhere (Kewcomer & Hammill, 1975;Sedlak & Weener, 1973). Only those studies relating specifically to the problem of the present study, predicting first-grade achievement in the regular classroom situation, are summarized here. Four studies have assessed the ability of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) to predict the initial stages of reading achievement (Durkin, 1970; Egeland, DiNello, & Carr, 1970; Hirshoren, 1969; Warden, 1967). The results of these studies have been inconsistent, with three suggesting that the ITPA can be used to predict reading achievement (Durkin, Hirshoren, and Warden) and the fourth indicating a readiness test (Harrison-Stroud) to be a better predictor for the reading achievement of boys (Egeland, et al.