Prediction and qualitative assessment of five- and six-year-old children's reading: a longitudinal study

This paper describes a longitudinal study comparing the power of two screening batteries (that of Clay, 1979, and that of a set of tests of phonological awareness and sound-to-letter correspondence knowledge) to identify, in the first term at school, children at risk of failing to learn to read successfully. A single test from one of the batteries is shown to provide an adequate screening procedure. There is no significant gain in predictive power if screening is delayed until the end of the first year at school. Regarding processes of the screened children are investigated at the end of their first year in school, and again seven months later. Almost all the best readers can use some phonological recoding processes by the end of their first year at school. Seven months later, this is true of all the best readers, with children who had now learned to use phonological recoding processes showing greater gains in reading age than those who had not.