Predicting children\u27s academic achievement from the Kindergarten Screening Inventory

There has been an increased interest in early intervention approaches for children who lack readiness skills for kindergarten. Effectively identifying young children who are potentially at risk will aid in determining early intervention programs. It has been cited in the literature that early intervention is of great value in the prevention and treatment of learning difficulties. In addition, behavioral problems and emotional problems that may arise secondarily to these difficulties may be prevented (Kelly & Peverly, 1992). Although standardized screening tests are often used to identify children at risk for school failure, these measures have produced conflicting evidence in identifying children at risk for failure (Agostin and Bain, 1997). This research study used the Kindergarten Screening Inventory as the measure used to identify children\u27s skills before they enter kindergarten. This tool measures a variety of skills (e.g., basic information, expressive and receptive language, auditory memory, vocabulary visual motor functioning, and auditory discrimination). Outcome measures of achievement level in school were measured by the children\u27s report cards and standardized test scores. The purpose of this investigation was to determine what skills, if any, predict a young child\u27s later achievement level. Further, this study considered at what grade level(s) the screener was useful in predicting academic achievement levels