The Screening Section of the TPRI is intended to help teachers quickly identify students who have developed important reading concepts. It is important to realize the limitations of any assessment that attempts to identify more able students. Some students may not do well on the screening items, yet have no trouble progressing through a program of reading instruction. Other students may do well on the screening tasks, yet have difficulty learning to read. The TPRI screens are designed to minimize misidentification, but it is important to remember no instrument is infallible. It is for this reason that judgments about appropriate student instruction and progress be made not solely on the information derived from the TPRI. Rather, appropriate student reading instruction should be based on teacher observation, student work, and knowledge of the student. The TPRI is designed to supplement and facilitate teacher judgments, not replace them. The Screening Section of the TPRI is not a placement instrument, nor is it intended to replace the need for further evaluation of students who may need special student services. The performance of students on the Screening Sections of the TPRI signals teachers to focus on the specific instructional needs of their students. It may also signal additional data might need to be gathered.

The Screening Section of the TPRI consists of the following areas:
Graphophonemic Knowledge (K, Gr. 1) - The recognition of letters of the alphabet and the understanding of sound-symbol relationships.
Phonemic Awareness (K, Gr. 1) - The ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds within spoken words so that letters can be linked to sounds.
Word Reading (Gr. 1, Gr. 2) - The correct identification of words.
Fluency is a strong component of the TPRI. Please see the final review of the IDEA (http://idea.uoregon.edu/assessment/assess_update.html) report (written by the Assessment Committee, chaired by Dr. Edward J. Kame'enui', of Oregon State University) for further clarification.

The screens are based on empirically derived predictors of reading success at the end of Grades 1 and 2. They consist of measures of phonological awareness and word reading skills that predict reading outcomes involving word recognition and comprehension skills in Grades 1-2. Each screen permits the teacher to complete a rapid assessment of all the students in the classroom. They are quick and efficient (less than 10 minutes) and are designed to identify students not at-risk for reading failure who most likely would not need further assessment.

  
1st Grade Screening  Sample

It is important to recognize that a screen is not a diagnostic instrument and that not meeting criteria on the screen does not mean that the student has a reading problem – only a need for closer evaluation. In fact, the screen is designed to identify students who are not likely to have reading problems. A student who can meet criteria on the screen is at low risk for reading difficulties. The cut-point on the screen was deliberately set to over-identify students who may be at-risk for reading problems. This decision was made because the failure to identify an at-risk student (false negative error) is more serious than the identification of a student as “at-risk” (false positive error) who experiences no subsequent difficulties with reading.

Whenever a screening device is used, these two kinds of errors will occur. Some students will meet criteria on the screen and yet will subsequently not learn to read at grade level. These errors (false negatives) are the most serious kinds of errors because these students do not receive the additional assistance they require at the earliest possible time, which makes their problems more difficult to remediate at a later time. The TPRI Screening Section has been developed to minimize the number of false negative errors (under 10%).

Some students will not meet criteria on the screen and yet will be reading successfully by Grade 3, even in the absence of any supplementary assistance. These students represent “false positive” errors and are a concern because they place an unnecessary demand on scarce resources.

The two kinds of errors are tied together; attempts to lower false negative errors lead to an increase in false positive errors, and vice versa. The TPRI screen was designed to keep false positive errors as low as possible, while at the same time minimizing false negative errors. When employing the TPRI, or any other screening device, it is important to keep in mind these two types of errors and to avoid labeling students solely on the basis of their performance on the screen. The screen is not diagnostic; it only serves to indicate the need for further assessment. Thus, a student who does not meet the screening criteria should be viewed as needing further evaluation. The inventory can be used to reduce or eliminate false positive errors and, if necessary, to plan learning objectives. Whereas an entire inventory could be given to every student without first administering the screening test, doing so would require substantially more time and effort on the part of teachers. Teachers should also use the student’s progress with the curriculum and their judgment to identify false negatives, i.e., students who meet criteria on the screen, but who struggle with reading. These students should also receive further assessment. It is also recommended that the Reading Accuracy, Fluency and Comprehension portion of the inventory be given to all students, regardless of whether the student meets criteria on the screens, to ensure that no student who may need assistance is not identified.

Even when various phonological awareness and related skills are assessed at the end of kindergarten or beginning of first grade, the link with the development of actual reading skills is not simple. A variety of indirect factors may impinge on the assessment of reading precursor skills that might also produce both false positive and false negative errors. For example, a student may do well on phonological awareness measures because of intense training or extensive literacy experiences, but still struggle with the development of word recognition skills because the training did not include a print component. Similarly, false positive errors may reflect the assessment of students from communities where many families have limited resources and are from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds with less exposure to English literacy-related activities. Because of the many possible indirect factors that may influence the student’s development, screening assessments should occur at several points during the student's development. At a minimum, the following assessment times are recommended:

1) middle and end of Kindergarten

2) beginning and end of Grade 1

3) beginning of Grade 2

Screening at the beginning of kindergarten is not encouraged because students need to acclimate to school. There is no screen at the end of Grade 2 because the screen for the beginning of Grade 2 is highly accurate. students who do not meet criteria on the beginning Grade 2 screen most likely require intensive intervention and further screening is not indicated.