Early Literacy Screening Tool

I administered the “The Get Ready to Read Screening tool” to my daughter. This is a research-based series of questions used to determine whether a child has the early literacy skills they need to become readers. My daughter was eager to sit at the desktop computer to play a game with me. I read the question as the text appeared on the screen and she would point to her response. Each question had four choices and she would try to tap the screen for her choice. I explained that I had to use the mouse to make her choice which was disappointing to her.   Her responses to the letter recognition were quick and fluent. Though her responses to the blending questions were all correct, her slow response makes me think this is an area we should review.   Though this assessment can be completely done online and scored by the computer, I chose to do also mark her answers on the printable scoring sheet so that I could more closely analyze her responses. I thought saving the printed sheet would be a good reference when I administer this screening in a couple of months to see the growth that she has made in the area of early literacy skills.

The Get Ready to Read Screening tool is most appropriate for children in the year before they enter kindergarten. Since my daughter will turn 3 in a couple of weeks, I am aware that this tool is designed for older children and knew ahead of time that there may be questions that she would not be able to respond to.   If I were to use this screening tool in my preschool classroom, I would order the “Get Ready to Read Revised” tool available through Pearson since it is norm referenced for  children who are 3, 4, and 5 years old.  A benefit of the on-line version is that working on computer is a very desirable activity for my child and she was very engaged during the testing.   The Get Ready to Read Screening tool is only 20 questions and it is available free on-line.  I like that it takes only 5-10 minutes to administer per child, which would be important if I was using it in my classroom.    On this first administration my daughter scored 15/20. From this data I will now work on sorting letter/numbers, reinforce her awareness of rhyming pairs, work on quick and fluent blending, and will continue to work on beginning sounds.   After those areas are more solid, I will also introduce syllable deletion by working on changing compound words, “What is cupcake without cup.”

Later when she is more aware of handwritten print, I will talk about printing that is more legible than other print samples.

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Overall the I found the online Get Ready to Read Screening tool to be a great way to know what areas were strengths for my daughter and helped me decide on areas to work with on. I suggest both parents and providers who have children who are soon to enter kindergarten to use this tool.

The Get Ready to Read! Website says that the early literacy skills that this screening tool looks at are: ·         Print knowledge refers to a child’s understanding of books, printed letters, and words. ·         Linguistic awareness refers to a child’s understanding of how words and language works. ·         Emergent writing refers to a child’s first efforts to create and use print in a meaningful way. The screening tool is available for free at- http://www.getreadytoread.org/screening-tools/grtr-screening-tool