A Longitudinal Record of Elementary School Absence and Its Relationship to Reading Achievement

Researchers collected longitudinal elementary school attendance, enrollment, and reading achievement data from the cumulative school records of a large sample of urban public school students. The average number of days absent each week are plotted and statistically analyzed for sex differences and for differences among four cohort groups of students in a multivariate analysis of variance. Student absence rates are significantly related to both teacher-assigned reading grades and standardized test scores after control variables, including previous achievement, are removed by the regression equations.