Developing a screening inventory reading test (IRT) for the Isfahanian students of the first to fifth grade

Reading is one of the most essential skills in this century. Reading disorders can cause several problems for the person who has reading disorder. Early assessment and diagnosis play an important role in treatment of this disorder. The main purpose of this study was to develope a screening inventory reading test (IRT) for first to fifth grade student in Isfahan in order to early diagnosis of reading disorder. The test, consisting of 100 words context and four comprehension questions, named Inventory Reading Test (IRT), was evaluated by several speech therapists. It was standardized by testing on one thousand boys and girls, 200 students in every grade, that were selected through a multi-stage random sampling method. Test was performed on two other groups, a normal and a reading-disordered. Scores of reading accuracy and velocity were highly correlated with the test total score. Test reliability was calculated as 0.77 by Cronbach`s alpha measure. There was significant difference between two groups mean score (p=0.01). IRT seems to be an appropriate tool for screening reading disorder of first to fifth grade students.