The Efficacy of Preschool Developmental Indicators as a Screen for Early Primary School-Based Literacy Interventions

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Public Health
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Literacy success is foundational for long-term educational, health, and well-being outcomes.
• Early identification of children with literacy needs is vital for timely intervention.
• Existing preschool health screening programs offer an opportunity for early literacy assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the predictive power of demographic and health variables from a national preschool health screening program for identifying children needing literacy intervention.
• To assess the effectiveness of current screening methods in flagging at-risk children for early literacy support.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from New Zealand's national preschool health screening program (2010/2011-2014/2015).
• Analyzed demographic and health variables of 255,090 children aged 4 years.
• Employed time-to-event analysis to relate screening variables to subsequent literacy intervention in early primary school.

Main Results:

• 8.1% of children (20,652) received a literacy intervention.
• All analyzed demographic and health variables were significantly associated with receiving a literacy intervention (p < .01).
• The predictive power of the model for population screening was limited (Harrell's c-statistic = 0.624), indicating insufficient accuracy.

Conclusions:

• While demographic and health factors are related to literacy intervention needs, they are not sufficiently predictive on their own.
• Current national preschool screening practices may not adequately identify all children requiring early literacy support.
• Enhancing screening programs with direct literacy measures is recommended to improve early identification and intervention effectiveness.