Universal Screening and Reading Skill Development

Universal screening is the foundation of the Response-To-Intervention (RTI) model of student support implemented in Tennessee in 2014. RTI was implemented in an attempt to thwart the wait to fail model historically relied on by schools. The hope of RTI is that schools fail to wait as students struggle to acquire basic skills. Instead, they provide timely skills-based intervention to support struggling students. Many school districts across the nation utilize the RTI process and universal screening.
Universal screening consists of administering developmentally and instructionally appropriate measures to identify students who may need additional support. Universal screening measures are typically brief measures. Many are administered as a one-minute assessment.  Measures may be administered to the whole class (e.g., Reading Comprehension MAZE measure) or the individual (e.g., Oral Reading Fluency measure). The infographic on p. 15 explores typical reading development milestones and aligns these milestones to developmentally and instructionally appropriate universal screening measures.   

What? 
Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Reading comprehension comprises many different processes and relies on several foundational skills. Reading comprehension is often represented by Scarborough’s (2001) model of reading and the associated reading rope graphic. Reading comprehension is divided into two main strands in Scarborough’s model: word recognition and language comprehension. The word recognition strand encompasses the core skills of phonological awareness, sight words, and decoding. The language comprehension strand includes background knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge. 

Similarly, the center’s model of reading comprehension, i.e., the reading wall, represents skills and processes that contribute to reading comprehension. The top block of the infographic represents reading comprehension and includes the skills that support reading comprehension. Each subskill supports and contributes to the efficiency and accuracy of the skills above. For example, a reader needs to know letter-sound relationships to decode new or unknown words successfully. 

Phonological awareness, which includes phonemic awareness, is an essential foundational building block to develop accurate sound-symbol representations. As sound-symbol knowledge is consolidated and instruction in syllable types is provided, readers decode in larger chunks, and spelling (i.e., encoding) skills develop through direct instruction and practice. As readers consolidate this knowledge and practice these skills, fluency is built, and readers become better able to accurately and automatically decode and identify words in connected text. 
These basic skills and processes make reading comprehension possible, but they are insufficient in isolation. Decoding and word recognition is the first step in reading comprehension. Readers also must have adequate background, vocabulary, and syntactic knowledge to understand the meaning of words in context. Building basic reading skills is the first, critical step in the process of developing reading comprehension.

When?
The middle block of the infographic presents the timeline for the development of skills commonly tested by universal screening. Please note that all skills that support reading comprehension are not typically included in universal screening process. The areas that are not currently part of the universal screening process are greyed out in the infographic. These areas are often included in more diagnostic assessments, e.g., screening for characteristics of dyslexia. While the terms accurate and automatic appear greyed out in the infographic, accuracy and automaticity are essential components included in timed universal screening measures. 
Phonological awareness includes an awareness of syllable and word boundaries as well as rhyme, alliteration, onset-rime awareness (ages 3–4), and phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness includes identifying, blending, segmenting, deleting, and manipulating phonemes (ages 5–6). Weaknesses in phonological awareness, and especially phonemic awareness, contribute to difficulty establishing sound-symbol relationships. Letter knowledge typically develops as students receive direct instruction in the alphabet and phonics. Depending on a child’s exposure to direct instruction, letter knowledge and sound-symbol knowledge develop around 4–5 years old. Decoding (ages 5–7) and encoding (ages 5–12) skills strengthen as children receive direct instruction in spelling, syllable types, and syllable boundaries. 
As readers consolidate and practice these basic skills, accuracy and automaticity in reading connected text builds. Fluency continues to improve with practice, and typical students begin to demonstrate efficient reading around the second semester of first grade (ages 7+). These skills contribute to the development of reading comprehension. Vocabulary, morphology, background, and syntactic knowledge also contribute to reading comprehension. Reading comprehension skills develop over the course of a reader’s life, but universal screening for reading comprehension is developmentally appropriate beginning in the second grade when a student should have consolidated the underlying skills (i.e., accuracy) and built automaticity for reading comprehension.  

How?   
There are many measures that can provide information about the development of each of the skills. One example measure is listed in the third block of the infographic. These are common measures available from testing companies (e.g., Pearson) or organizations (e.g., DIBELS from the University of Oregon). Please note that this is not a comprehensive list of measures. For example, phonemic awareness may also be measured with an initial sound fluency measure. The age or grade should be used to determine an appropriate measure. The instruction provided to the student should also be considered when selecting and interpreting screening measures. A measure that serves as a universal screener at a lower grade level may be used as a diagnostic screener for a student at a higher grade level.
Outcome measures that represent the consolidation of basic skills (i.e., fluency and reading comprehension) necessarily include those subskills (decoding, letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness). However, it is not possible to determine if a student has a weakness in an underlying subskill based on an outcome measure. For example, a student identified as needing additional support through universal screening using an oral reading fluency measure cannot be presumed to have underlying weaknesses in phonological awareness and sound-symbol knowledge. To determine the student’s strength or weakness with these skills, a specific measure targeting only these skills should be administered.
Universal screening is the first step in identifying potential need for intervention. Dyslexia-specific or diagnostic screening guides intervention. For more information on developmentally aligned universal screening measures and their appropriate use, please see our publication Dyslexia within RTI.

Jennifer Flipse, Ph.D.  director