In addition to testing the reading skills of ABE learners, the ARCS researchers administered a lengthy questionnaire, so we can give you more information about the people in Profile 6.

• Seventy (70) percent are Native Speakers of English (NSE).
  
  
• The average age is 28.
  
  
• The average number of grades completed is 9.7.

• Profile 6 learners read passages orally (not timed) with accuracy at a group average of GE 7.1. Readers are usually able to decode words more accurately when reading passages, where they can use meaning and sentence structure to recognize familiar words, rather than when reading words from word lists where there are no contextual clues to aid decoding. Differences between these two forms of oral reading exist for all Profiles except for those groups composed of the weakest readers (Profiles 9, 10, and 11) who read text word by word, as if reading words on a list.
  
  The better a reader can decode even unfamiliar words in isolation, the better she/he can read connected text.



• Receptive (listening) vocabulary (as measured by the PPVT-III):
  
  
  • PPVT-III scores range from "low average" (12%) to "extremely low" (23%). Half of those in the "extremely low" range are Non-native Speakers of English (NNSE). The PPVT-III assesses verbal ability that in part determines levels of reading comprehension ability.
  
  
  
• How can we determine a learner's comprehension potential if their oral reading accuracy is low?
  
  They can listen. There are listening comprehension tests that will give you a grade level at which your learner is able to understand reading passages. If they could read orally at a listening mastery level, they would be able to answer the comprehension questions at that level. We can say that a listening comprehension test is another measure of verbal ability.

• Why is the Word Meaning average significantly lower than the other components, even lower than Silent Reading Comprehension to which it is usually more closely related?
  
  
  • Profile 6 has 30% NNSE, the highest percentage among the three Intermediate Group profiles. We would expect non-native speakers not to do as well as native speakers on vocabulary measures especially because most NNSE in this group began learning English after age 18. However, some NSE also score as low as GE 2 on the Word Meaning subtest. The average Word Meaning GE for native speakers is only 4.6.
    
    
  • Performance of Profile 6 readers on the DAR word meaning test, "Tell me what X means," is in line with their low verbal ability scores on the PPVT-III.

Browse Profile: Menu
	Description of the ARCS Comparison Profile 6
	Suggestions for Instruction for Profile 6 Learners
	Additional Profile 6 Information from the Research
	Comparison of the Three Profiles in the Intermediate Group
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