Page 6    |    ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding

 ©The Children’s Reading Foundation with permission from Lynn Fielding    |    Page 7

 

)

In the first grade (graph on left), the top 

students (shown in the upper right – toe – of 
the graph)
, have Northwest Evaluation 

Association RIT (Rasch Unit) scores in the  

180-190 range. A RIT score is an estimation 
of a student’s instructional level.  

 

)

Notice average students reach those 
same scores in third grade (lower left graph)

Low-end students who start first grade in 
the bottom left (heel) are still struggling to 

achieve 180-190 RIT scores/skills at the 
beginning of fifth grade (lower right graph)

 

)

Reading growth can be accelerated and 
when reading scores go up, researchers 
show that math scores also increase 66 to 
125 percent with no additional instructional 
time in math.  

In these graphs, each dot represents a student with their reading score shown on 
the horizontal axis and math score on the vertical axis. The data shows high readers 
tend to have high math scores and low readers have low math scores. Student 
scores maintain the foot-like shape from first grade onward.

Predicting MATH Failure

Correlation

= .80

Correlation

= .77

Correlation

= .76

Predicting SCIENCE Failure  

Your students’ reading and math scores also predict their science scores. When the 2012 
science scores of 65 PISA (Programmer for International Student Assessment) countries are graphed 
against the average of each countries’ reading and math scores, the dots form a tight linear 
relationship, a correlation of .985.

3

You can quickly graph your own 
students’ average reading and math 
scores against their science scores.

  

Where do you predict the 40 

percent of your own low readers/

low math students will score in 

science in middle and high school?

  

Top 24 PISA

Countries

1

Shanghai-China

2

Singapore

3

Hong Kong-China

4

Korea

5

Chinese Taipei

6

Japan

7

Liechtenstein

8

Macao-China

9

Finland

10Canada

11Switzerland

12Estonia

13Poland

14Netherlands

15Belgium

16Ireland

17Germany

18Viet Nam

19Australia

20New Zealand

21France

22Austria

23Denmark

24United Kingdom

United States

3

 www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf — downloaded 6/14/2014. 

The PISA assesses the competencies of 15-year-olds in reading math and science.