Abstract:
School districts often use kindergarten pre-screening assessments to determine thereadiness skills of students prior to entering kindergarten (Shields, DeMeo-Cook, &Greller, 2016). The purpose of this study was to examine the extent that a relationshipexists between the spring District A Kindergarten Screening-JumpStart assessment scoresand beginning of the year kindergarten achievement as measured by the beginning of theyear DIBELS Next Kindergarten Reading scores in letter naming fluency (LNF) and firstsound fluency (FSF). The study also examined the extent the relationship between theDistrict A Kindergarten Screening-JumpStart and beginning of the year kindergartenDIBELS Next Kindergarten Reading scores in LNF and FSF was affected by gender,race, and socioeconomic status (SES). The sample consisted of approximately 2,900kindergarten students enrolled in District A during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 schoolyears. Pearson product moment correlation coefficients were calculated to index thestrength and direction of the relationships between the District A KindergartenScreening-JumpStart assessment scores and the DIBELS Next Kindergarten Reading inboth LNF and FSF scores. The sample was diaggregated by gender and two correlationswere calculated and compared. It was also disaggregated by race and five correlationswere calculated and compared. Finally, the sample was disaggregated by SES and twocorrelations were calculated and compared. Moderately strong correlations indicated thatthe Kindergarten Screening-Jumpstart scores are good predictors of beginning of the yearDIBELS Next Kindergarten Reading scores in LNF and FSF. Additionally, resultsindicated that the relationship between Kindergarten Screening-JumpStart scores and beginning of the year DIBELS Next Kindergarten Reading scores in LNF and FSF werenot affected by gender, race, and socioeconomic status.