Abstract
Impaired readers in primary school should be early recognized, in order to asses a targeted intervention within the school and to start a teaching that respects the difficulties in learning to read, to write and to perform calculations. Screening procedures, inside the primary schools aimed at detecting children with difficulties in reading, are of fundamental importance for guaranteeing an early identification of dyslexic children and reducing both the primary negative effects--on learning--and the secondary negative effects--on the development of the personality--of this disturbance. In this study, we propose a new screening procedure measuring reading speed and accuracy. This procedure is very fast (it is exactly 1 min long), simple, cheap and can be provided by teachers without technical knowledge. On the contrary, most of the currently used diagnostic tests are about 10 min long and must be provided by experts. These two major flaws prevent the widespread use of these tests. On the basis of the results obtained in a survey on about 1500 students attending primary school in Italy, we investigate the relationships between variables used in the screening procedure and variables measuring speed and accuracy in the currently used diagnostic tests in Italy. Then, we analyse the validity of the screening procedure from a statistical point of view, and with an explorative factor analysis, we show that reading speed and accuracy seem to be two separate symptoms of the dyslexia phenomenon.
Highlights
A prevention approach to reading problems is well-established: schools do not wait for a student to fail, but they screen all students to identify those who, despite a normal education programme, show difficulties from the beginning of reading acquisition
Studies have shown that reading problems become increasingly more resistant to intervention and treatment after third grade (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998)
Because of the consistency of Italian orthography, at the end of first grade, the large majority of children successfully perform in reading and spelling (Stella, 2004)
Summary
A prevention approach to reading problems is well-established: schools do not wait for a student to fail, but they screen all students to identify those who, despite a normal education programme, show difficulties from the beginning of reading acquisition. Designing effective early reading screening instruments is complicated as the time of year and age/grade at which they are administered may greatly. The literature argues that for young children, screening of early literacy skills should occur before formal literacy instruction begins (Badian, 1982; 2000; Invernizzi, Justice, Landrum & Booker, 2004; Justice, Invernizzi & Meier, 2002). Italian studies on reading acquisition show that at the beginning of primary school, children are highly heterogeneous, which is caused by different levels of maturity and different cognitive and linguistic abilities. Because of the consistency of Italian orthography, at the end of first grade, the large majority of children successfully perform in reading and spelling (Stella, 2004)
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