Using a brief preschool early numeracy skills screener to identify young children with mathematics difficulties

A critical component in enhancing academic success is identifying children at risk of later academic difficulties. Although significant efforts have been devoted to design effective assessment processes in elementary school, fewer efforts (particularly for mathematics) have been made for preschool. The focus of this study was to design and evaluate a brief early numeracy skills screening tool. Measure development and validation occurred in a two-stage process with diverse and distinct samples. In the first stage, 393 preschool children were assessed on a battery of early numeracy tasks. By use of an item response theory framework, 24 items that spanned the ability continuum were selected for inclusion in the brief measure. In the second stage, 129 preschool children were assessed on the brief measure, the Test of Early Mathematics Ability-Third Edition, and two literacy measures. The data resulted in acceptable psychometric properties and strong diagnostic accuracy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.