Identifying preschool children at risk of later reading difficulties

Emergent literacy skills are predictive of children's early reading success, and literacy achievement in early schooling declines more rapidly for children who are below-average readers. It is therefore important for teachers to identify accurately children at risk for later reading difficulty so children can be exposed to effective emergent literacy interventions. In this study, 176 preschoolers were administered two screening tools, the Revised Get Ready to Read! (GRTR-R) and the Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs), and a diagnostic measure at two time points. Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses revealed that, at optimal cut scores, GRTR-R provided more accurate classification of children's overall emergent literacy skills than did IGDIs. However, neither measure was particularly good at classifying specific emergent literacy skills.