Abstract:
Research shows how absenteeism and gender positively or negatively affect a child’s grades and classroom performance. If there were more resources and knowledge about how a student’s attendance and gender relate to his or her reading grades in the classroom setting as well as to reading scores on standardized tests, grades and scores could possibly increase due to a better understanding of what needs to take place in order for students to succeed academically in the area of reading. In this research study an examination was made as to what degree a student's absences and gender predict her or his reading achievement. This non-experimental, explanatory study used quantitative methods. This study was conducted by using data from second-grade students during the academic year of 2015-2016 at four different rural elementary schools in South Georgia. There were 336 males and 263 females included in this study. A multiple regression analysis was used to determine how well absenteeism and gender predict reading achievement, which was measured by STAR Reading data. I examined the relationships between student attendance and students’ reading achievement and between gender and students’ reading achievement. The reading achievement was measured via 2016 Spring STAR Reading Lexile scores. Analyses did not reveal a significant effect of gender or attendance on predicting the students’ STAR Lexile scores. The model summary and the ANOVA summary indicated that the overall model of the two independent variables (gender and absenteeism) did not significantly predict a student’s reading achievement.