APPLICATION OF TWO-LEVEL NEGATIVE EXPONENTIAL MODEL TO CHILDREN'S LEARNING CURVE IN READING.

This paper attempts to model the development of children's reading skills using the negative exponential curve with mixed effects model. The model describes the nature of growth in children's reading skills and accounts for intra-individual and inter-individual variations. In addition, we propose methods including cross-validation, regression, and graphing to determine an appropriate curve for the data, to find good initial values for parameters, and to select potential covariates. We illustrate with an example that motivated this research: a longitudinal study of academic reading skills from grade 1 to grade 12 in Connecticut public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]