مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Development of Early Literacy Skills Assessment Tool

Abstract :

This study aimed to develop an “Early Literacy Skills Assessment Tool” validity and reliability study to assess the early literacy skills of preschool children. The research sample is composed of 473 children of 48-77 months, 244 of whom are female and 229 male, studying at 23 schools in six districts of Ankara during the school year of 2011-2012. The research is designed in accordance with the survey model. Having reviewed the literature on the early literacy skills assessment, the sub-dimensions of planned assessment tool as well as an item pool were formed and content validity was conducted by consulting the expert opinions. The assessment tool items were evaluated by giving points of “1” for the correct responses and “0” for the incorrect ones. The applications were practiced with the kids on one-to one basis. Exploratory, confirmatory factor analyses were performed and item discrimination values were examined within the scope of validity analyses of Early Literacy Skills Assessment Tool sub-tests. For the reliability, the sub-tests were investigated according to KR-20, test re-test and split-half reliability. Based on the results, Early Literacy Skills Assessment Tool has five sub-tests with a total of 96 items. These sub-tests are phonological awareness (five factors and 53 items), print awareness (three factors and 16 items), story comprehension, matching images and pre-writing skills subtests (one factor of each one and nine items of each one). The KR-20 reliability value for the sub-tests of Early Literacy Skills Assessment Tool ranges between 0.61 and 0.91. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis displayed that Print Awareness and Prewriting Skills Assessment sub-tests have a weak fit; while, other sub-tests have a fit value at the acceptable level. Item discrimination for the groups at the top and bottom 27% showed that all items are distinctive.