What concept does the psychologist highlight about reading skills variability across a school?

What concept does the psychologist highlight about reading skills variability across a school?

• A. All students have the same deficit
• B. Deficits are due to instruction only
• C. There are developmental progressions and ranges of individual abilities
• D. Variability is random and unpredictable

Answer: (C)

Reading abilities develop along a continuum, and students in the same grade can be at very different points on that path. The idea is that there are developmental progressions and a range of individual abilities: some learners are just beginning to decode and read connected text, while others are already fluent readers, and many fall somewhere in between. This reflects natural differences in how quickly each child grows and how their reading skills—like phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension—develop. Recognizing this helps explain why a single classroom shows wide variation in reading achievement and why instruction should be differentiated to meet each student where they are. It isn’t that all deficits are the same, nor that reading gaps come solely from teaching practices, and it isn’t random—it's about predictable, individual growth trajectories.

Reading abilities develop along a continuum, and students in the same grade can be at very different points on that path. The idea is that there are developmental progressions and a range of individual abilities: some learners are just beginning to decode and read connected text, while others are already fluent readers, and many fall somewhere in between. This reflects natural differences in how quickly each child grows and how their reading skills—like phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary, and comprehension—develop. Recognizing this helps explain why a single classroom shows wide variation in reading achievement and why instruction should be differentiated to meet each student where they are. It isn’t that all deficits are the same, nor that reading gaps come solely from teaching practices, and it isn’t random—it's about predictable, individual growth trajectories.