Why use RiFS-Reading?

Reading disorders may occur in as many as 1/5 to 4/10 children , many of whom are not diagnosed until 2nd or 3rd grade. In many school districts, 3rd grade is designated as a retention year. Most of the children who are retained receive no intervention for their reading disorders until that time. In addition to that delay, successful remediation is much more difficult and much more costly if intervention is delayed. Early diagnosis of children with reading disorders will make significant improvements in the lives of children who are missing the necessary foundation in reading that should have been acquired before the children start school.

Children who get off to a poor start in reading, rarely catch up. The failure to learn to read has severe consequences including difficulty in all subjects in school, early school drop-out, and problems obtaining meaningful jobs as adults.

RiFS-Reading screens kindergarten students for their knowledge of the names of the letters and the sounds the letters make and three types of phonemic awareness. In addition, the screener has a parent component which identifies certain demographic situations and parent observations with children who are at-risk for reading difficulties. RiFS-Reading has a major advantage over nearly all other kindergarten screening tests as it is available in a digital format and can be given to the students in an entire class at one time, rather than having a teacher or paraprofessional interact one-on-one with each student in the class, something which takes up valuable time in school