Lateral Dominance and Second Grade Reading Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover if second grade students having a unilateral dominance will be academically higher in reading than their bilaterally dominant, or mixed laterally dominant classroom peers. Two separate t-tests were used to test the research questions presented in this study: a) Will there be a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the unilateral dominant group and the mean score of the bilateral dominant group on a standardized reading achievement test? b) Will there be a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the unilateral dominant group and the mean score of the mixed dominant group on a standardized reading achievement test? Initially, the differences between two physical literalities (unilateral and bilateral second grade students) and their standardized reading achievement scores were established. Based on a standardized reading achievement test (raw scores), the t-test showed that there is no statistically significant difference between the means of unilateral and bilaterally dominant second graders. An additional t-test revealed that there is no statistically significant difference between unilateral and mixed laterally dominant second graders. These findings are based on raw scores from a standardized reading achievement test.