Considerations in Universal Screening
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Considerations in Universal Screening
Screening assessments are...
- Easy to administer
- Reliable and valid
- Timely and informative
They can help capture each child’s reading and language strengths and weaknesses in key early stages of development.
Screening appears to be most successful when:
- In kindergarten, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter-sound association, and phonological memory tasks are included.
- In first grade, phoneme awareness and segmentation, letter manipulation, nonword repetition, oral vocabulary, and word recognition fluency tasks are included.
- In second grade, word identification, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension tasks are included.
Suggested Citation
National Center on Improving Literacy (2019). Considerations in universal screening. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from http://improvingliteracy.org.
References
Petscher, Y., Fien, H., Stanley, C., Gearin, B., Gaab, N., Fletcher, J.M., & Johnson, E. (2019). Screening for Dyslexia. Retrieved from improvingliteracy.org.
Abstract
Screening assessments can help capture each child’s reading and language strengths and weaknesses in key early stages of development.
Related Resources


In this interview, Dr. Compton explains the purpose of universal screening, describes how it fits into a multi-tiered intervention system, and discusses using screening to identify students at risk for reading problems and place them into appropriate interventions.
Topic: General Literacy, Assessments, Screening


This chart identifies screening tools by content area and rates each tool based on classification accuracy, generalizability, reliability, validity, disaggregated data for diverse populations, and efficiency.
Topic: General Literacy, Assessments


More on Screening
- Are Individual Differences in Response to Intervention Influenced by the Methods and Measures Used to Define Response?
- Best Practices in Universal Screening
- Characteristics of Students Identified with Dyslexia Within the Context of State Legislation
- Commonalities Across Definitions of Dyslexia
- Core Considerations for Selecting a Screener
The research reported here is funded by awards to the National Center on Improving Literacy from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, in partnership with the Office of Special Education Programs (Award #: S283D160003). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of OESE, OSEP, or the U.S. Department of Education. Copyright © 2023 National Center on Improving Literacy. https://improvingliteracy.org