Letter-name knowledge: Predicting reading and writing diffi culties

Conhecimento do nome das letras: predizendo difi culdades de leitura e de escrita

Abstract

This study evaluated the precision of a Letter-Name Knowledge task in predicting children at risk/non-risk of reading and writing difficulties in Brazil. A second goal was to compare the precision of classification of two versions of this task: a 26 letter-task and a 15 letter-task. A total of 213 Brazilian children performed the 26 letter-task when they were in kindergarten. Of those children, 176 performed a writing task and 174 performed a reading task in 1^st grade Elementary School. The choice of letters for the 15 letter-task was based on the Item Response Theory and on neural network simulation. The results based on the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analysis, showed that both tasks could be used for screening children with reading and writing difficulties (areas under the curve of 0.83 and 0.80).

Keywords
Letter-name knowledge; Reading and writing diffi culties; Screening