Do Teacher Reports of Executive Functions Predict Reading Development? Evidence from a Nationally Representative Sample

This study explores whether teacher reports of executive functions predict change in reading performance (i.e., reading development) for elementary-aged students when controlling for direct assessments of executive functions and for teacher reports of students' literacy skills. Prior research has raised problems with the construct validity of teacher reports of executive functions but has yet to consider that these teacher reports might be related to teachers' perceptions of their students' literacy skills. The current study used Grades 3 through 5 data from nationally representative data (N = 6945) of students collected between 2014 and 2016 to examine the contributions of teacher reports of executive functions to change in reading performance over the course of a year with autoregressive structural equation models. Measures of executive functions tapped attentional focusing (in Grades 3 and 4), working memory (in Grade 3), and inhibitory control (in Grade 4). When controlling for a direct assessment of the same facet of executive function as the teacher report, the teacher report of executive function predicted next year's reading. However, controlling for a teacher report of students' literacy skills reduced the effect of teacher reports of executive functions to nearly 0 across models while not reducing the effect of direct assessments of executive functions. This finding held across student race and home language subgroups in multigroup analyses. Based on these findings, teacher reports of executive functions do not capture information about executive functions that predicts of reading development beyond the teachers' perceptions of their students' literacy skills. Further research is needed to determine how teacher reports of EF could be designed to capture EFs as applied to reading.